The other side
by NerdyNobody
Summary: The NERDS are sent in to deal with a new villain on the rise. Much to their surprise however, said villain doesn't seem to be very good at acting like one.
1. A cold start

Braceface asked as the group trodded across the icy roads of Alaska. Light snow dusted the area as winter began to approach. The others looked at him. "You seriously didn't listen to the briefing again, Braceface?" Heathcliff asked, glaring slightly. Braceface shrugged.

"I got distracted." He said simply. The others just rolled their eyes.

"Another villain. They've been kidnapping doctors, biologists, and chemists left and right, and their motives for that haven't been made clear yet. We've sent in a couple other groups after them, but their pretty slippery, and got away every time. We're the most experienced team, so we're being sent in. If they keep up the pattern they have been, then this should be the place they're hitting next." Gluestick said, pointing forward.

In front of them was a large facility. It had a few different buildings connected to a center one. There was some fencing around the area, as well as a small booth in front of a gate. The group walked to the woman in charge of the booth. Pufferfish flashed her badge to her, and she let the gate open. They walked through, and Pufferfish turned to address them all.

"Alright. We all know what to do right? Gluestick, set up surveillance and take watch on the inside after. Flinch, stand watch over at the northeast corner. Braceface, northwest. Wheezer, you get a view from the air. I'm taking the southeast corner, and Heathcliff, you're taking southwest. Got it?" She informed. The group collectively nodded to her.

"Good. Now get moving." She said. Everyone disbanded to their respective tasks to take watch of the facility.

They waited. And waited. And waited. Nothing seemed to happen. Birds chiped, grass blew, and the trees leaves rustled. The group suddenly sneezed.

"Uuuuuggghh. There's nothing going on up here. How long are we supposed to stay here?" Wheezer's voice came in.

"Nothing happening here either." Flinch chimed. A few other mumbles of agreement went through, when Wheezer suddenly let out a surprised cry.

"OH CRUD!" She yelled. There was a second voice that seemed to being coming through that was chanting out "sorry" at a quick pace.

"Guys! Got trouble! Bad guys here, get ready!" Wheezer called. The others ran towards the center, just below where Wheezer was flying, and looked up. Above them, were a few dots. One was Wheezer, but there was about six more unidentified ones that were locked in combat with her.

"Wheezer! What's going on up there?" Duncan said.

"Robots! They look kinda like humanoid birds. One of em has some kid with it!" Wheezer replied. The battle started to drop suddenly, going toward the ground at a rapid pace. Soon enough, Wheezer, as well as her attackers were on the ground. The bots did indeed look like humanoid birds. They were colored black, and dark metal wings connected to rockets were on their backs. Their feet were orange claws, although they didn't seem to be particularly sharp. Their heads were like crows, probably whst they were modled after, with black, camera like eyes, and black beaks. Wheezer backed up to the team, and pointed to one of them. Pressed into the side of one of the bots, was a kid. She looked around their age as well.

Her hair was bright white and straight, coming down to her upper back. Her skin just as pale. Her wide eyes were a strange mix of blue and pink, looking between the bots and them.

"Hey! Let the girl go." Braceface called. Flinch reached up, turning the dial on his harness. Within a second, he dissapeared before reappearing with the startled girl in his arms. She let out a loud squeak, reaching into her pocket.

"Got her." Flinch said simply. Pufferfish suddenly froze, looking at her.

"Wait! No! Put her down! That's the villain Flinch!" She cried. The group looked at her, confused, but the girl lifted a small, whistle like object out of her pocket, and blew into it frantically.

"Cheeta bots! Help me! Everyone, move in! Plan B!" She yelled.

{Hahahahahaha. Im dying. My lack of impulse control is going to kill me. I have a good idea, and I act on it. Someone stop me. Anyway, Im excited for this one. Also, another oc? You betcha. Because ocs are my lifeblood.}


	2. Escaping

The moment the girl yelled that, everything began to dissolve into chaos. There was a rush of wind, and she was suddenly pulled from Flinch's arms. Looking forward, they saw that she was now being held in the arms of another robot. This bot had more feline features. It was humanoid, again, but it was colored goldish yellow and white, with black rings and patterns on its face. It had small, rounded ears on its head, and a long tail. Its face was very...cute. To say the least, as well as one of the more human looking bots. With a small black nose connected to an upside down v shaped mouth. Its black eyes were set into a glare, as its tail whipped around behind it as it clutched the now identified villain to its metal chest. A second later, three more of these bots blurred into view. The NERDS looked to eachother, nodding before getting into defensive stances.

More bots began to surround the group, this time shaped after wolverines, rhinos, and buffalo. The

rhino and buffalo bots were large. At least seven feet tall. The rhino bots were gray, and had large horns coming off of their elongated faces. The buffalo bots were colored shades of black and brown, shaggy fur comimg from their necks and two horns came off to the sides of their heads. The wolverine bots were significantly smaller, but looked intimidating. Sharp claws on the ends of their hands, and long, sharp teet poking out of their mouths. They were mostly brown, with black marks on their hands, legs, and backs as well as some white marks on their faces. In the back, the cheetah bot put the villain down gently onto the ground, brushing her off before nudging her towards the other buildings. She nodded, rushing off towards them.

From there, the battle began. Flinch took on a few of the rhino bots and cheetah, who much to his surprise, were almost as strong and fast as him. Wheezer and Gluestick tag teamed some dog and wolverine bots, Gluestick gluing them down so wheezer could have easier targets. Braceface made a pair of fists with his braces, smashing them into various buffalo bots. Ruby ducked amd weaved between attackers, making her way towards the building that the villain had entered, and away from the chaos of battle. She ran inside, looking around before choosing a path and going towards it. There were a few twists and turns, but soon she began to hear voices.

"Again, I'm really sorry I have to do this. Can you just, please come nicely? I don't like to take people against their will. Please?" Said one of the voices, presumably the villain.

Her voice was small, nervous almost, and had an Alaskan accent. She didn't sound like much of a villain, from the way she talked.

"Are you crazy? Of course I'm not coming with you! Get away from me!" Yelled another voice. That was the biologist. Pufferfish peeked around the corner. The two were standing across from each other, and the villain had her hands up in a placating way with a reluctant look on her face. She had shrunk in on herself slightly. There was a bird bot standing next to her, with a comforting hand patting her shoulder. Pufferfish stepped out.

"I would step away if I were you." She said. The villain jolted, looking to her.

"Ohhhh. Oh no. Uhhh, ok. Well, that's bad. Ok. Um...BIRD BOT, GET US OUT OF HERE!!!!!! ...Please." She cried. They were going to run. Pufferfish sprinted at them, fists at the ready.

The bird bots wings opened, and it jumped into the air, firing up its jets. It gathered the villain into its arms before flying forward and grabbing the biologist in its claws. With a flap, it shot upwards towards the skylight, curling around the people it held, before smashing through it and into the air above. Pufferfish ducked, covering herself from the glass shards raining down. She thought she might have heard a faint "sorry!" from the escaping villain. She tapped her nose, activating the com link.

"Guys! The villain is getting away! Wheezer, get up there and catch them!" She said.

"On it!" Wheezer replied. Outside, Wheezer looked up, towards where the skylight broke, and saw the three starting to fly west. She concentrated on her inhalers, and blasted towards them.

She was quickly gaining on them. The villain peeked over the bots shoulder, looking at her. The villains eyebrows shot up, and she waved awkwardly at her before saying something to the bot. All of a sudden, the bot dropped from the sky, shooting for the forest below. Wheezer attempted to follow, but the three were hidden by the trees. She dropped into the forest, looking around. For a while, she looked. However, much to her dismay, she didn't find anything. She tapped her nose.

"Wheezer here. They dropped into the forest. Looked around for a bit, but I still can't find them. How are things on your end?" She said. Pufferfish let out a long frustrated groan.

"We took down most of the bots, but a lot of them got away." Flinch said. There were a few noises of confirmation. Pufferfish sighed.

"Alright. Head back. We can regroup in the school bus." She said.

"Mission failed. We'll get em next time." Jackson laughed.

"Hey Jackson? Don't." Heathcliff said.


	3. The lair

A loud sigh of relief came out of the villains mouth as the small girl finally left the area. She, her bird bot, and the biologist were sitting huddled just under the top branches in a tree. The bird bot had its hand clamped firmly over the biologist's mouth, preventing any sound from escaping. It turned to the villain.

"Miss Lily, I think it would be alright to head back to base now." It said. It had a sophisticated and british sounding accent, although slightly electronic. Lily nodded.

"Yeah, we should. But again, you don't need to call me miss. It's just Lily." She said. The biologist looked slightly startled at the robot. It noticed.

"You seem surprised Mr Shantie. Don't be. Yes, I may be a robot, but I assure you that I can in fact talk fluently." It said. It picked Lily up into its arms once again, as well as grabbing onto the biologist with its claws, and taking off. It was a slighly long fly, but they eventually landed in a small clearing in a patch of forest.

Ahead of them was a dirt path, covered by trees that grew by the sides and made a canopy. The three walked along the path until they reached a tree stump. Lily stepped forward, pressing her hand to the center of it. It began to glow blue, scanning over her hand before ceasing. The ground in front of them suddenly broke apart to reveal a large metal circular platform. Lily hopped onto it, and the bird bot ushered the biologist onto it and stepped on itself. The platform began to lower, and as they got farther down, the ground above them closed up. There was a minute of silence, and it seemed to make Lily feel awkward. Soon, the platform stopped, and a door in front of them slid open. They stepped inside. The biologist gaped as he looked around. It was a large, white room, that looked similar to a lobby.

There was a desk that a bot that seemed to be modled after a chimp. It had long fingers, and mostly black body with a tan face. It was tapping away at a computer placed there, looking back and forth between that, and a clipboard next to it. There was a door next to the desk, which two bots that looked like dogs stood next to. They had long, sharp ears that stuck up, and tiny stub tails that wagged behind them. They had black coloration, with brown patches on their chests, hands, and faces. They noticed the three immediately.

"LILY!!!!" They both cried in unison. They both had Australian accents. They ran forward, jumping onto the smaller girl and bowling her over. They hugged her and the three laughed loudly. Lily pulled back.

"Okay okay, that's enough you two. We got a new guy we need to get accustomed to stuff. Hey Chi! Call in one of the deer bots and get this guy a tour and stuff. I need a report on how many we lost, and how many are coming back now." She called. The chimp bot glanced up, nodding and tapping at its computer a few times.

"Thirty two bots were lost. We have seventeen on route back to us. They should be here within a few minutes. And I have called a deer bot to show this man around." It said. Lily looked down, starting to look upset. The other bots looked downtrodden at the news as well. Lily sighed.

"Oh...well...that's...not good. Send in a few chameleon bots for cleanup if it hasn't already been taken care of by those other people. We can hold another funeral for them tomorrow." She said, standing up.

The other bots nodded, and the dog bots went back to their posts, opening the door. Lily looked over to the biologist.

"Again, I'm sorry that I had to do this, but I really need help from people like you for what I need. One of my bots is gonna show you around, so stay there for a bit. I just want you to know that nobody here is going to hurt you, and we're not gonna treat you badly. You're gonna be released as soon as we do what we need to. I promise." She said. She sounded truthful, and there was no malice in her voice. She turned back around, jogging through the door with the bird bot. Once she was through, she took a deep breath.

"Hoo boy. That...was a long day. They almost caught us that time. Took down even more bots than they usually do too. I think I'm just gonna go sleep. Thanks for getting us out of there birdie. You were a real help." She sighed. The bird bot patted her head.

"It was my pleasure Miss Lily. I'm glad to be of assistance to you." it said back. Lily rolled her eyes.

"Again, you can just call me Lily. Miss makes me feel old. I'm only twelve!" She replied. The bot chuckled, walking down the opposite path to Lily.


	4. Back to base

Brand had his arms crossed, looking down onto the tense and nervous children with slight disappointment.

"Let me get this straight. You let the villain get away?" He said. The children nodded.

"Sorry boss. I thought I would be able to catch her, but she had one of her bots with her, and they grabbed the biologist and flew off before I could catch them. Matilda flew after them, but they got cover, so she couldn't find them." Ruby replied. Matilda shrugged guiltily. Brand put his hand on his face and sliding it down.

"At least you got that far. Most of them didn't even get close enough to see her." He sighed.

"I even grabbed her for a bit too. But it looks like she has a lot of bots that have some abilities too. Some of them were almost as fast as I was. Those were the ones that got her away when we had her." Julio butted in.

"Maybe we could look in our database and see if anyone there fits?" Duncan chimed. Brand nodded thoughtfully.

"That could work." He said. He waved a someone over, talked to the person for a second, and they rushed off. They all stood there for an awkward minute, tapping their feet. Soon enough, another person popped up, leading them over to a terminal.

"Alright. If you could describe what the villain looks like, we should be able to go through a few candidates. Heathcliff nudged them aside.

"Albino, mixed blue and pink eyes, a little shorter than Julio, mid back hair, probably about our age." He said. The terminal buzzed for a second, flashing through different lists and faces, before putting a few faces in a line. They quickly found who they were looking for. There were a few news articles in front of them.

"Says her name's Lily Weather. Her parents were pretty famous for their tech, specifically robots. That must be where she got all her bots from. But...it says here that all three of them dissapeared just about three years ago. Nobody was able to find them, even after they did a whole long search thing. Most of the bots, as well as pretty much all of the blueprints for important research dissapeared as well." Jackson said. Ruby frowned, eyebrows furrowing.

"Well that doesn't give us any hints on where she's hiding." She said in a frustrated tone.

"Does anybody know what happened to them? Did they just dissapear, or were there any signs of something going on before that?" Julio asked.

Jackson scanned over another few pages before shaking his head.

"Well, if there were, it's not in anything we have here." He answered.

"Alright, so figuring out if there's info on her was only semi helpful. This is fine. We can just catch her next time she goes off to catch another person. If we focus on her instead of the bots, we shouldn't have a problem." Matilda said. The group nodded in unison.

"She doesn't really seem like all that good of a villain either. She just got lucky last time." Duncan said. Matilda snorted, a grin on her face.

"Definitely not. Did you guys even hear when she bumped into me while flying? She was apologizing at a million miles per hour." She laughed. The others joked for a second before Ruby stopped them.

"We shouldn't underestimate her. She might have something up her sleeve. You never know. Just keep cautious." She said. The team agreed and talked for a few more minutes before breaking off to leave for their respective homes. It was a tiring day, so sleep was much appreciated


	5. The new plan

The door creaked open. A couple small squeaking sounds entered the room, arriving to the side of Lily's bed. There was one loud sqeak, and a weight landed itself onto the edge of the bed. It went up to Lily's face, nudging it with its soft, cushy body and beeping slightly. Lily held back a smirk, rolling over away from the intuder. Said intruder let out a small electronic buzz of frustration before hopping onto the girls side and beeping loudly and continually. Lily let out a laugh finally, letting her eyes open and grabbing the intruder off of her side. What she held, was what looked like an adorable plushie. It was about as big and round as a slightly deflated basketball, and splattered with light pastel colors of blue, pink, yellow, and green. On its head were two cat like ears, and an antenna with a softly glowing red ball on the end.

It had a bushy, husky like tail on its behind. Two tiny wings were attached to its back. It had small black eyes, and a tiny mouth set into an angry upside down v. It was extremely soft and plushy, allowing Lily's hands to sink in slightly.

"Alright alright. I'm up. No need to keep beeping at me, Data. Thought I would have a few more minutes before you finished charging and updating." She said, sitting up and sliding off the bed. The room was dark, the only lights coming from under her door, and the small ball on Data. Lily walked to the light switch, slowly turning it up. It would hurt if she switched it all the way up immediately due to her small photosensitivity problem. Her eyes adjusted, and she quickly got dressed, grabbing Data with one arm and rushing out the door. She ran down the hallway at a brisk pace, dodging expertly around the occasional bot or "captive" who would give her small waves or greetings.

She meant captive extremely lightly, as they were all allowed to roam the halls and go free to pretty much do whatever they wanted as long as they worked a little bit. They just couldn't leave unless it was an emergency, like family problems or something like that, if they promised to keep the location secret of course. After that, they would be escorted back. They all learned fairly quickly that the so called "villain" was really just an awkward, emotional, shy, and sensitive child with frankly understandable motives. One of them had made her cry after calling her an idiot. The girl finally halted at a door at the end of a hall, leaning on her legs to catch her breath for a second. She stood up again, and entered. The room was smallish, and slightly darker than the rest of the facility. It was her office, so she made it more comfortable for herself.

There was a white desk in the middle of the room, where a few papers and a computer sat with other miscellaneous items such as, a stapler, pens and pencils, a small cactus, a stress ball, some photos, nuts and bolts, gears, tools, and the like. There was a chushy black rolling chair behind it. Two plants sat next to the entrance. Lily slid into the chair and turned the computer on, Data in her lap. She had a few files up, but she closed them and put them to the side, creating six new ones. She tapped away on the computer, writing down the descriptions of the new spys who had come to take her down yesterday. It was scary to deal with them, since these people were obviously not any normal people. She wanted answers on them and who they worked for. Not like they would give that info out willingly. However, despite her curiosity, she knew she didn't need the answers. She just needed to make sure they didn't stop her before she was able to achive her goals.

She sent the files and leaned back. Data vibrated lightly in her lap, almost as if it was purring. Lily rubbed it's head, her eyebrows furrowed.

"Darn. I hope we can still do this with those people on our talis." She said. She suddenly gripped Data harder.

"No. We can. We have to." Her tone turned hard, along with her expression. Data beeped worredly. Lily looked down on it, and her face dropped its look immediately, instead beginning to look like she was going to cry. A few tears pricked her vision, but she wiped them away.

"Nevermind that. Lets not think about it too much. We still have missions to plan. We're hitting up a lab this time. They have some pretty important blueprints that we could use. As usual, I sent in some chameleon bots to check the place out and grab it if possible. It...is gonna be harder than expected. We're gonna be there a while probably. It has a pretty heavy guard. We can do it though." She said. Data beeped, bouncing happily on her lap, squeaking as it did so. Lily laughed.


	6. The lab

The NERDS rushed into The Playground, landing on their feet and running over to the director who stood in front of them.

"We're here, what's the situation?" Pufferfish said. Benjamin suddenly flew over, projecting a camera feed.

"Well, it looks like our slippery villain friend has broken into a lab on the coast of California." He said. Like he said, on the feed were a few scientists standing defensively in front of the villain, who seemed to be frantically trying to calm them down as red lights flashed above. There was a wolverine bot standing in the corner next to a bird bot. The bird bot had it's face in it's hands, shaking it slowly. The wolverine bot had a wide grin on it's face. looking like it was breaking down into hysterics. The villain was waving her hands frantically, looking around at the flashing lights around them and flinching whenever one of the scientists would yell something at her.

To their surprise, she also looked like she was at the very edge of crying.

"As you can see, we need to move. Everyone in the school bus asap." Brand said. The team nodded, rushing to their places. Soon enough, they were blasting through space. Ms.Deprankova handed them their bags once they got close, and they jumped out of the rocket.

"Alright everyone. We have our villain cornered, so we can do this. Keep an eye on those robots." Pufferfish called. The others nodded.

"Landing area is right below us. Get ready to deploy." Gluestick said. Within the minute, they were on the ground, rolling their parachutes up and sprinting towards the lab that red lights and sirens were blaring out of. They burst inside, looking around with their upgrades ready to be used.

Up against the wall were a few groups of scientists being guarded by different sized robots modled after bears. The brown they were colored got darker as they got larger. There were small, medium, and large ones. They had large arms that widened into paws with long black claws on the end, although they seemed to be dulled slightly. There were large poofs of white fur around their necks, getting smaller as they got bigger. The smaller ones had the cute faces, with little upside down v mouths and red ovals on their cheeks. The large ones had elongted snouts with long fangs poking out, more animalistic looking than the smaller variety. When the NERDS busted in, they all jumped, looking bewildered as they froze for a second. They were quickly taken care of, although one of the smaller ones was able to get away fast enough as to not be turned into a pile of scrap metal.

Quickly, they made their way along the long corridors of the laboratory, once in a while having to attack some bots that were blocking their way.

"Alright guys, we're almost at the center. If the villain is there, which she probably is, we can cut her off and take her in." Heathcliff said. The others nodded before they slammed the door in front of them open. Pufferfish suddenly shot her arms out, preventing the team from moving any farther. Braceface was about to complain, but suddenly saw the problem. There were red lazers crisscrossing the room, and in the middle of it, was the villain. She was wobbling clumsily and weaving around the lazers the best she could as the bird and wolverine bot they saw on the camera feed encouraged her. When she saw the NERDS, she froze like a deer in the headlights.

"Oh...hi...again." She said meekly


	7. A fight starting

Lily waved her hands frantically at the scientists as they yelled for help, looking back and forth between them, the blaring red lights and sirens, and the wolverine and bird bot who were sitting on the sidelines. The wolverine bot was laughing hysterically, which she didn't particularly appreciate. Lily looked back at the scientists.

"Umm, please calm down, we only want your blueprints! Please, I'm asking nicely! We're not gonna hurt you or anything. Please?" She said, cringing inwards.

"No way! Get out of here! You're crazy kid!" One of the scientists cried. Lily flinched again, shivering. She took a step back, only to bump into something big. She looked up, seeing that one of the large bear bots was standing behind her.

"Alright, that's enough. Why don't you go and do your thing? Askin' nicely isn't gonna do nuthin' sweetheart. We'll take care of em' from here lil lady." It said in a thick texan accent. Lily nodded her head, jogging back around the bear bots that had gathered.

She ran down the hall as fast as she could, followed closely by her wolverine and bird bot. She knew Birdie wouldn't be able to help much since he was an escape bot, not an attack bot, but he was good at giving support. She was able to recognize him from the other bots from the small red dot on the front of his throat. He was one of the beta bots that was created by her parents, that had been there since the beginning. He was like an uncle to her. The three finally arrived at a door, and pushed it open. Lily immediately froze as she saw the lazers crossing the room. She pulled a small piece of fabric from her pocket, tossing it at the lazer. As soon as it hit it, electricity buzzed across it, turning it black as it burned. The three gave eachother a look, before Lily stepped forward shakily.

"Miss Lily, I would not recommend you try to do that. I am aware that you are very flexible, and we would be destroyed if we messed up, but we should attempt to find another way around it." Birdie said.

Lily shook her head, a determined look crossing her face for a split second.

"No, I can do it." She said. She then stepped forward, ducking and getting through the first few. She wobbled through the walls of lasers clumsily, almost hitting some on occasion. When that happened, Birdie and the wolverine bot would cry out in worried tones, warning her. She was soon in the middle of it, when the door to the room suddenly slammed open, and six people appeared. It was the kids who had been tailing her last time. She froze, staring for a second.

"Oh...hi...again." she said meekly. She immediately pulled her contact whistle out of her pocket, playing a specific tune.

"Guys! Help! Opposing team in the building! Birdie! Wolverine bot! Run!" She cried out, turning around and rushing to continue her way through the lasers.

Birdie and the wolverine bot turned, sprinting back down the hallway as new bots took their place. She could see the kids fighting against them. However, two of them broke off from the others. The blonde girl with the poofy hair, and the small chubby african american boy. The boy jumped onto the wall and ran easily up it, dodging any of the laseres that were there. The girl began weaving through the lasers with practiced ease. Both were gaining on her quickly, so she picked up the pace. Despite her clumsy wobbling, she arrived at the other side faster than the other two. She quickly pulled a small device from her pocket, slamming it into the wall and pressing a button. Within seconds, the door in front of her opened, and the lasers turned off. She sprinted inside. It was a large room covered wall to wall with cabinets of important blueprints and the like.

She groaned pitifully once she saw this, not very excited for what she was sure had to happen next. She pulled a tool out of the pack she had on, and pressed a button on it as a small loading bar appeared on its screen.

"Hey! Stop! You don't have anywhere left to run, so your best option would be to just give up." Said a voice behind her. She turned her head. It was the two kids that had followed her. She looked between them and the still loading device, cringing.

"Ahhh, uhhh, I'm sorry. Can't do that. I really need a blueprint from here. Can you, like, uh...wait? Maybe? Please? I don't really want to fight you." She said quietly, backing away from them. The blonde girl scowled, scratching at her arm.

"No way. We might have lost you last time, but not today. You're going down." She said. The boy nodded in agreement.

Lily shivered, taking a few steps back as they took some forward.

"Come on come on come on, please load please load please load please load." She whispered quietly as she was backed up against the wall. The two kids suddenly charged at her, ready to attack, and she squealed in fear, putting her hands up to protect herself. She hopped away from a few shots of sticky gunk from the boy, stumbling to the side slightly. The girl sent multiple well timed punches and kicks at her as she had bare milliseconds to block or dodge. It was like she already knew where she would be going. She ducked and weaved between attacks, occasionally taking a chance to push them away from her with a well placed shove. The device in her hand suddenly beeped, turning green, and she just barely sighed in relief as she dodged another glob of glue from the boy.


	8. In your way

Pufferfish took deep, steady breaths as she sent hit after hit at the villain, working along with Gluestick, who was sending shots of sticky glue at her, trying to trap her to the ground. It was, however, becoming frustrating, as the villain was extremely quick, able to duck and dodge and hop out of the way out of their attacks just barely. She had her hands up, one holding a strange device, but wasn't attempting to do anything but block their attacks, which she was doing with almost no effort. Like said before, it was frustrating. Suddenly, the device beeped, and turned green. She sighed in relief as she dodged another one of Gluesticks shots.

"Please make this easier on me and let me get the blueprints." She cried, sprinting to one of the walls and jumping up onto it, clambering up using the handles to the drawers.

"Again, no way! You're not a very good villain, just asking us to let you get away with stuff, are you?" Gluestick replied, running up the wall after her.

The villain pulled open one of the drawers, legs flailing in distress as they lost their footing on the handles she had used as footholds. She rifled around for a second as Gluestick came closer, and the drawer drifted still away from the wall, starting to become unstable as it was reaching the end. The villain pulled out a file with a small "yes!" at the same time Gluestick reached her, reaching out to grab her. Unfortunately, it also happened at the same time the drawer finally reached its end, and fell out of the wall. The villain screamed in terror as she fell with the drawer, Gluestick's fingers just barely being able to brush her as she went backwards. Pufferfish dodged out of the way of the falling object and person. The two landed on the ground with a loud thud, and the villain let out a cry of pain, letting go of the file that she had in her hand, grabbing onto a wound that had appeared over her forehead, likely from the metal on the drawer scratching her.

Small tears dripped onto her face as Pufferfish and Gluestick stood over her, looking at eachother.

"Alright. You going to stop running now?" Pufferfish said, hands in her hips. The villain sniffed, shaking her head slowly.

"Nooo. I'm sorry for the trouble. I really don't want to hurt anybody, I just...wanna go home." She answered quietly. The two NERDS looked at eachother again with confused looks.

"Home? Can't you just fly there or something? Why all the kidnapping and stuff if you can just get there with one of your bots?" Gluestick said. The villain froze, eyes suddenly glazing over and she began to shake.

"No...no...no. Not right. Can't." She began to mutter, slowly curling into a ball and squeezing her eyes shut. Pufferfish reached forward to shake the villain, when the door behind them crashed open, slamming into the wall.

The remaining NERDS rushed into the room turning back to the entrance, where more bots were starting to come in.

"Sorry Pufferfish! We got pushed back!" Wheezer called over.

"Running low on power over here!" Flinch chimed. The villain snapped out of whatever had grabbed hold of her mind, and reached her arms out towards the bots. Quite quickly, the girl was sweeped into the arms of a bot who was able to swerve around the NERDS, a worried gaze in its eyes.

"Get the file on the ground and lets run! Come on!" The villain shouted. The NERDS were quickly herded to the side of the room, blocked by some bots. One bot grabbed the file on the ground, and the one carrying the villain was already out the door. As soon as they were safely outside the door, more bots ran after. The NERDS were able to push through the remaining bots and followed them. Outside, the villain was on the other side of the room, furiously pressing at a device. There was a sudden flash from it, and the lasers suddenly turned back on. With the NERDS right in the way.


	9. Knock out

Relief swept through Lily's body as the device in her hand finally activated, beginning to turn the lasers back on. However, this was short lived. Her heart stopped as she saw the other kids shoot into the hallway, rushing at her. Panic sunk deep into her body as she threw a hand out and let a distressed cry slip out.

"No!!! Watch out!!!!" She screamed to them. It was too late. The lasers appeared, and as soon as they did, they were broken up by the children who had only just barely registered what she said. Each one of them made different choked noises of pain as their bodies spasmed with electricity and they fell to the ground. Tears quickly went to the edge of Lily's eyes as she pressed the device in her hand another few times with desperation, rushing to turn them off. They soon did. As soon as that happened, Lily pulled herself from the arms of the bot holding her and sprinting over to the fallen children.

She dropped to her knees, quickly checking each of their pulses. There was a slight relief at the fact that they were still there. She then pressed her hand to their chests and ensured they were still breathing. They were, however unconscious.

"Ohhhhh gooodddd. I'm so sorry. I'm so so sorry. I didn't know they were going to follow me that quick." She whispered, holding her still bleeding head in her hands. She wiped away some of said blood, pulling a whistle from her pocket and blowing a specific tune on it. She had different tunes for all the bot types. Within the minute, four bunny bots appeared. The bunny bots were colored a pure white color, with red inner ears and plus signs on their chests. They had different closed compartments on their stomachs, chests, forearms, and shoulders, as well as a small box on their backs. They had little round black noses and eyes with the same upside down v mouth that most of the bots seemed to have.

One of them went over to Lily while the other three went to the fallen children. It went on one knee quickly examining her.

"Oh dear, honey are you ok?" It asked, worry lacing its tone as it brushed Lily's hair away from the wound. There was a slight Japanese accent in its voice. She sniffed, but nodded.

"It hurts. But its ok. Can you help it?" She asked. The bot nodded with a comforting smile.

"You know I can. Its a bit deep however. You might need a few stitches. It won't hurt, don't worry." it said. Lily nodded, and the bot reached out, a small needle coming from the tip of its finger. It went into Lily's head, and she winced, but soon the wound was numb. The bot opened the compartment on its shoulder, pulling out a needle and some suture thread. It worked quickly, and Lily barely felt it. The wound was finally closed with four stitches. Not the worst that could have happened. She kept her eyes on where the other three bunny bots were examining the children, running scans to make sure there was no severe internal damage. Lily hopped up and joined them.

"Is there anything really bad with them?" She asked. The bots shook their head simultaneously.

"Luckily not. They seem fine. No internal bleeding or change in brain waves. Simply unconscious. However, there seems to be something strange in their blood. Something electronic. It's altering their bodies functions in a very severe way. It's not dangerous, and it's not harming them in any way, but it is very strange. Permission to take a small blood sample?" one said. Lily nodded with a thumbs up. The blood samples were taken quickly and the bots backed off. Lily's eyebrows furrowed, thinking for a moment. They couldn't leave the kids here. Who knew what would happen if they were found. She sighed.

"Hey guys, I think we should take them outside. A bit farther away. They might be captured or investigated or something like that if they stay here. They'll be safer if we put them somewhere a little bit away." She said.

She was met with acknowledgment, and a few bots gently lifted the children into their arms, careful not to wake them. The group made their way back outside, gathering whatever left bots were there on their way. They quickly made their way into the chilly alaskan air, and jogged a few miles to a covered patch of trees. There, they placed the kids onto the ground. Lily crossed her arms, thinking for a moment.

"Do you think they're gonna be cold? I think they're gonna be cold. Do we have, like, blankets or something?" She asked, turning to the bots that followed her. A few giggled at that, which made her blush in embarrassment. They did, in fact, have blankets. She turned away from the group as the bots began to move out, going to hop on a bird bots back, but she heard a slight shifting behind her. She turned to look, and saw the red headed boy's eyes blearily opening slightly as they shifted to her. The two made eye contact for a second, but the boy was unconscious yet again very soon. Lily looked on for another few seconds before shaking her head and hopping on the bird bot, quickly taking off to go home.


	10. Awakening

Ruby shifted and groaned as she woke up, her entire body aching something fierce. She was allergic to being electrocuted. She felt cold air drift across her face, and she blinked her eyes open in confusion. They had been inside when they were knocked out, hadn't they? She was outside, a small blanket with a plaid pattern draped over her. She looked around to see her teammates laying around her with similar blankets draped over them as well. Her eyebrows furrowed.

"How did we?..." She trailed off as she heard shifting from beside her. She turned to see Heathcliff rolling over onto his stomach, pushing himself up, wobbling to his feet as he rubbed his head.

"Pufferfish? Ow...what the heck happened?" He asked. Ruby shrugged, hauling herself to her feet as well.

"I don't know. All I know is that we got zapped and knocked out because that girl turned on all the security again." She replied. The two stopped at a pained whine, looking over to see Julio rubbing at his temples and slowly sitting up.

"My head hurts. Did we get knocked out?" He said. Ruby sighed, nodding.

"Unfortunately. And it looks like our villain got away because of it. We're still trying to figure out why we're outside and why we have blankets." She replied. Julio frowned slightly.

"Do you think Mr.Brand pulled us out?" He asked. Heathcliff shook his head.

"No, if he had pulled us out, we would probably already be either in the school bus or at home. He wouldn't have just left us out with blankets. Plus, these aren't the types we keep in the bus. Ours have our logo on them." He answered. Ruby crossed her arms, thinking. A growl drew their attention, and they saw Matilda hopping to her feet, immediately in a fighting position and looking around. Her tenseness was replaced with confusion as she saw her teammates and where they were.

"Um, anyone mind telling me what happened? I remember getting electrocuted and that's it." She said. She was met with a collective shrug from the others.

"We're trying to figure that out too. It would help if Gluestick and Braceface were awake right now." Ruby replied. Matilda smirked slightly.

"That can be arranged." She said slyly. She walked to Jackson before backing up a few steps. She bent her knees and leapt up, falling down onto him and driving her elbow into his stomach in the process. He jerked, waking up almost immediately as he gasped for air, rolling onto his side and clutching his stomach.

"Ow! That hurt! What the heck was...that...for...?" He slowed to a stop as he looked up at his teammates, confusion dripping from his expression. Matilda patted him on the back before walking to Duncan and shaking him lightly. Jackson narrowed his eyes at her.

"Oh so I get a pile driver and he just gets a shake." He huffed. Matilda stuck her tongue out at the boy. Duncan soon blinked awake, looking around.

"Alright, good. Everyone's awake. Now we can figure out where and why we're here and who put us here." Ruby said. Duncan sat up before being pulled to his feet by Matilda.

"We should call Brand. He can check where we are and pick us up." He said. Ruby rubbed her face with a sour expression.

"Yeah, alright. Brand is gonna throw a fit though. This villain is a slippery one." She replied flatly. She sighed before tapping her nose, closing her eyes and putting her hands on her hips.

"Hey boss. Just reporting in, got electrocuted and knocked out, and now we're outside somewhere. ...Yeah. We lost her." She spoke. She suddenly flinched, likely from Brand yelling something. She rubbed her ear before continuing.

"Sorry, we'll try again next time. I'm sure we can do this. ...Uh huh. Yeah, alright. Just come and get us." She said before putting her head in her hands and groaning.

"Feeling frustrated?" Heathcliff asked her. She glared at him.

"Frustrated doesn't cut it. We've never lost a villain like that before! We always get them before they're able to get away! In fact, I'm pretty sure she's the only villain in the history of NERDS that has ever gotten away this many times! I checked the previous mission files on her, and so far, she has gotten away 34 times!!! 34!!! Are you even kidding me???" She cried, throwing her hands up.

The others glaced at eachother, different faces of awkwardness on them. Duncan walked to her and patted her on the back.

"It's ok. We're some of the best. I'm sure that we can catch her next time." He said comfortingly. Ruby sighed again, looking at him.

"Yeah, I know. It's just annoying." She answered. For a few minutes, the children continued to talk about the frustration of their mission before the school bus finally appeared, landing behind them. The door opened up, and the lunch lady waved over at them.

"Need a ride?" He asked jokingly.

"Oh I don't know. We could always just hop on Wheezer and have her fly us all the way back." Jackson joked back, giving him a couple finger guns. The children climbed aboard, flopping down into their seats.

"What a day, huh?" Julio said. The others laughed.

"Yeah. Hopefully one we don't have to repeat." Heathcliff replied.


	11. Nanobyte

Lily twirled around in her office chair absently, twirling a pen around the fingers of her left hand while petting Data with her right, who was sitting idly in her lap. She stopped for a second, taking another look at the stack of papers on the desk in front of her before groaning and resuming her twirling. Data beeped once at Lily, who groaned again in response. Data beeped again, making Lily glare down at it. It glared back, beeping insistently and hopping from her lap onto the desk, next to the papers. Lily frowned, putting an elbow on the table and resting her face in her hand.

"I know, I know. You can stop beeping at me. Papers are just so booooorrrriiinnnggg." She whined, leaning back into her chair and letting most of her body slide off. Data glared again, beeping once more. Lily sighed, sitting back up and looking Data in the eyes.

"Okay. Fine. You win. But I wanna get a root beer float first." She said. Data chirped happily, accepting the answer, and hopped off of the table.

Lily stood up, following Data towards the door. As soon as Data approached however, the door suddenly slammed open, sending the small plushy bot flying against the wall with a comedic squeak.

"Lily! You need to see this!" Cried the bunny bot that had burst into the room. Lily gaped like a fish for a moment before shaking her head.

"Oh! Uh, of course! Come on Data!" She replied, jogging after the bot. Data shook itself off, making a small indignant noise before hopping after. The three shot down different hallways and corridors before appearing at a small set of stairs. They quickly went down and appeared in a different area, obviously a lab. Many bots and scientists milled around the area, but the bunny bot ignored them, instead leading Lily and Data over to a small table with various magnifying apparatuses on it. A few other bunny bots stood around it, talking quickly back and forth.

"Hey, what's going on? Is there something up that I should know about?" Lily asked, standing next to them. They looked back and forth at one another before one stepped forward.

"Ah, yes. We were examining the blood samples we retrieved from those children, and we found something very...well...strange? Interesting? I don't know, take a look for yourself." It said, gesturing to a microscope. Lily leaned in, looking into it. Under it, was what was obviously blood cells and the like. She was about to question the bots when something else suddenly crossed her vision, and her eyebrows shot up. It looked like a tiny metal spider or roach of some kind. It scuttled around idly, not doing much of anything. Lily slowly looked up from the microscope and at the bots.

"Was that...a nanobyte? I mean, I've heard of them in sci-fi, and I think mom and dad were working on something like that at some point, but I don't...what is it doing there in the first place?" She said. The bots nodded, some crossing their arms.

"You're very perceptive, Lily. Yes, they are nanobytes. We were able to separate a few, and gather the data within them. From what we've learned, these are the things that are giving the children you have been facing their powers. They're extremely advanced, beyond anything we've ever seen. By all means, this technology should only have been able to be reached in centuries at the very least. It's baffling." The bot explained.

Lily blinked, looking into the scope again. Lily hummed before leaning back and crossing her arms with a thoughtful look on her face. Her eyebrows furrowed and she looked at the bots.

"Alright. I want a group of bots working on taking those things apart and figuring out how they work. I want to see if we can find a way to disable them somehow." She said finally. The bots nodded collectively, dispersing to gather a team as fast as possible, leaving Lily standing there with an unreadable expression on her face.

"Hmm. We might be able to get somewhere with this. What do you think, Data?" She hummed, glancing down at the bot. It blinked before buzzing at her slightly. Lily's eyebrows furrowed further, and she sighed.

"I guess it doesn't matter. Just an inch farther to getting where we need to be. I hope it'll be worth it in the end. I don't know if any of this is even going to do anything." She said quietly. Data rubbed on her leg, looking up at her with a worried face. Lily just shook her head, picking it up and leaving the area. Her need for a rootbeer float had vanished.


	12. Zipidy doo da

Are we there yet?" Jackson asked.

"No." Brand answered through grit teeth.

"Now?" Matilda asked.

"No." Brand said again.

"How about now?" Julio asked in a similar manner.

"I swear, if any of you ask that question again, I'm going to turn this car right around and have all of you double on report duty." Brand growled, glaring at the six children through the rear view mirror.

"Hey, we weren't saying anything." Heathcliff grumbled at him. Grand pinched the bridge of his nose. Viktoriya had roped him into taking the team on a trip to an adventure park in the area because she apparently thought the kids were just stressed, and that was why they kept failing to capture Lily. He begged to differ. But no matter, despite his reluctancy, here he was. Driving a group of overexcited children in a minivan down road.

"I want to stay in the car. I'm allergic to adventure parks and rambunctious kids." Ruby huffed. She seemed to be the only one remotely reluctant about the trip.

"Come on Puffs. It's not gonna be THAT bad." Jackson teased. Ruby glared before rolling her eyes. Within the next few minutes, they finally drove into the parking lot. They parked the car and hopped out. The park was huge. Even bigger than most regular amusement parks. They got their passes and entered, despite the slightly long line they had to go through before they did.

"Guuuyyyssss. This place is huge!" Jackson cried, turning in circles to scan the area with a large grin on his face.

"Of course it's huge. It's one of the biggest adventure parks in the state." Duncan said as he walked ahead.

"I see food trucks! They probably have cotton candy! And fried dough! I'm going over there!" Julio said excitedly, sprinting towards said area. Brand rubbed his face in his hand, a small scowl on his face.

"I should probably go watch him." Duncan laughed, going to follow his hyper friend.

"I'm not sure this place even qualifies as an adventure park in all honesty. Food trucks? Game stalls? It's more like a fair or something." Ruby said as she looked around.

"Hey! There's a strength test thing over there! I'm gonna break it!" Matilda pointed out, running towards said area.

"Matilda, no! Don't break the strength test!" Ruby shouted back as she jogged after her, scratching at her shoulder. For a second an awkward silence fell over the remaining three.

"Uhhh, anyone up for going on the zipline?" Jackson asked.

"Yeah, sure." Heathcliff replied, shrugging.

"No thanks. I'm just going to try to rest my leg for a while." Brand sighed. The two children nodded in understanding before hurrying off to the zip line as he sat down on a nearby bench.

"Ever been on a zipline before?" Jackson asked as the two strode towards the area. Heathcliff rolled his eyes.

"Of course I have. All of us have gone down a zipline at some point." He replied.

Jackson laughed, crossing his arms but saying nothing. They continued walking across the park for a minute, getting close to the zipline, when Heathcliff suddenly stopped. Jackson turned and raised a brow at him.

"Something up?" He asked. Heathcliff was staring upwards and his jaw was slightly dropped. He pointed up. Jackson looked where he pointed, and his eyebrows shot up. Sliding down the zipline wearing a safety harness, was a person they were both quite familiar with. The albino girl's eye's were wide, looking down at them as she whizzed past as she was quickly followed by a younger man with black hair and glasses looking at them in a similarly stricken fashion. For a moment neither Heathcliff nor Jackson could do or say anything, simply frozen in shock.

"What the fuck." Heathcliff stated. That seemed to knock Jackson out of his own shock as he turned to him.

"Ok, for one, Brand said we can't swear until we're sixteen. And two, we should get the others." He said. Heathcliff nodded, already tapping his nose to activate the com link.

"Uh, guys? We need to get moving. I just saw Lily Weather pass by on the zipline." He said. He flinched away at the loud shout that followed.

"What?!?" Ruby cried.

"Yeah. Just a few seconds ago. We need to move, before she can escape." Jackson said.

"Ok, ok, ok. This is fine. Everyone stay calm. We can't use our upgrades here or we'll get spotted. I want Flinch and Matilda guarding the exit, Jackson and Heathcliff ready at the bottom of the stairs to the zipline, and Duncan, you're coming with me to confront her directly. Lets go go go people!" Ruby said quickly.

"Right!" The team said in unison. They all turned off their com links and rushed to their areas.

"What a coincidence huh?" Jackson laughed nervously.

{Hey guys. Im in to say that there might be a possibility that I'll be switching Memories and The other side around. Im just not really feeling all that satisfied with Memories right now and I might take a bit to change the schedual so I can think on what its missing. Nothing definite though. Just a premptive warning.}


	13. Zipidy yay

Lily grinned as she carefully walked across the wooden planks suspended high up in the air, giggling slightly.

"This is really fun! It's too bad we don't have things as big as this where we live!" She said, turning her head back. Wobbling behind her was a young man with slightly mussed up black hair and glasses covering his steely blue eyes. His skin was pale and he wore a T-shirt with a small red dot in the middle and long black pants. He was a perfect mimicking of a human.

"Of course, but please do be careful. We don't want you to fall. If you would like, I could always make accommodations with an empty room so we could make one of these for you." Birdie replied. The bot had had his data transferred into a new body so the two could go to this particular adventure park.

"Aw! Would you? That would be awesome! I'd bet that everyone in the base would like it too." Lily replied happily. Birdie smiled and sighed. They continued across the high up area before moving back down for food.

After eating, Lily decided she wanted to have them both ride the zipline. So, as per her request, Birdie led her over. And within a few minutes they were strapped in the harnesses and sliding down the zipline.

"Wooooo!!!!" Lily cried, laughing loudly as the wind whipped around her hair. Birdie chuckled lightly as well, glancing to the ground. His eyes shot open.

"Miss Lily!! The enemy!" He shouted. She blinked and glanced down, just able to see two boys from the team that was attempting to capture them. She stared wide eyed as they shot past.

"Oh. Oh no. Birdie we have to run." She said hurriedly as they slid down the line. He nodded.

"Right. I have already sent an sos to headquarters. Help will be here soon." He replied. They soon arrived at the end, hurriedly taking off their harnesses and beginning to take off down the bridge towards the exit.

"Hey!" A voice called. The two turned. Sprinting up behind them was the blonde girl with glasses and the short chubby boy. Lily let out a small squeak of fear, grabbing onto Birdie.

"Stop running!" The boy yelled after them.

"I'd rather not, thank you very much!" Lily replied loudly. The two finally reached the end of the stairs, landing on the dirt in synchronization. The relief of that was short lived as two were confronted by the boys they had passed on the zipline.

"Hey guys. How are ya?" The blonde one chuckled. Lily laughed nervously.

"Quite well thank you. But, ah, we should be going now." Birdie said, sweeping Lily up into his arms and shooting between the two. They were soon way ahead of the four others, and approaching the exit. Lily gripped Birdie harder.

"Wait, stop stop stop! There's the other two!" she cried. Birdie swore under his breath, sliding to a halt. The two unfortunately had already noticed them, and were approaching quickly.

"Crowd! Get into the crowd!" Lily said, pointing back towards the area with food trucks where people milled back and forth.

"Good idea." He replied, turning on his heel and into the crowd. Once they were sufficiently hidden, Birdie set Lily down onto the ground. She put her head in her hands.

"Noooo, what are we going to do? They have the exit covered." She groaned. They sat down behind one of the food trucks, letting themselves calm slightly. For a few minutes they were quiet. Both of them only were thinking of how to escape. Lily suddenly jerked, eyes widening. She bit her cheek and cringed at whatever she was thinking. Birdie raised his brows at her.

"Have you figured something out?" He asked. She nodded slowly, eyebrows furrowing.

"It's...a kinda really horrible idea. Ethically anyway. Do you think we could...like...take one of them hostage? They might be reluctant to hurt us or put us in jail if we have one of their teammates. I know, it's bad, but it might work. And we don't have to keep them for long! Just until they agree to not bother us anymore." She explained.

Birdie stared at her wide eyed and surprised. His eyebrows slowly furrowed, thinking for a few seconds.

"Well, I suppose it could work. It would all hinge on them being attached to their teammate." He said. Lily nodded, standing up.

"I'm pretty sure they are. We don't have any time to waste. You still have the tranquilizer right?" She asked. He stuck up his pointer finger, showing a small needle that came from it as he stood up. The two quickly made their way back through the crowd, keeping their eyes open. It wasn't long until they found one of them. It was the mexican boy with the harness around his torso. Lily nodded to Birdie, and he strode forward, grabbing his shoulder and sticking the needle in. The boy yelped in surprise before beginning to slump against the bot.

"Sorry." He said quietly, hefting him up into his arms and setting his head gently on his shoulder before jogging back to Lily.

"There's an emergency exit in the back of this place. If they aren't guarding that too, we should be able to get out. And call off the sos too. I don't wanna make chaos for no reason." She said with a gesture. He nodded, and for the thousandth time, made their escape from danger.


	14. My oh my what a wonderful day

"Julio!!! Where are you?" Ruby called out, turning in circles as she jogged through the crowds. He wasn't answering any calls at all, and none of the others had seen him either. She knew something bad had happened to him. She was allergic to bad things happening to her friends.

"Ruby! Have you seen him yet? I've checked all the food trucks and games. He isn't there." Duncan called as he ran over to her. He had a look of obvious distress on his face.

"No. I haven't." She replied tensely. She suddenly sneezed loudly.

"Hey guys. I'm not seeing him anywhere here. I checked everywhere! What do you think happened?" Jackson said through the link.

"Something bad. I don't know what, but just something bad. Just keep looking. He can't have gone far." Ruby grit out, turning the communication device back off.

She shook her head, eyebrows furrowed. They continued looking, but a few minutes later, Ruby sneezed again.

"Hey, I haven't found him yet either. Any luck on your end?" Heathcliff said tentatively. Ruby gritted her teeth harder.

"No. Keep looking." She replied, turning it off again. Duncan gave her a wavering sympathetic look as he patted her on the back. She replied with a withering one. The two continued on their search, looking high and low for their lost friend. Duncan was obviously distressed. Flinch was, after all, his best friend. He glaced over at Ruby with a frown when they finally stopped.

"Do you think he might just have went back to the car and took a nap?" He asked. Ruby sighed, shaking her head.

"I wish." She replied. She suddenly glanced up, looking over to the side. Shooting towards them with a frantic look, was Matilda. She was yelling something incomprehensible from the distance quite loudly. She stopped, took a breath from her inhaler, before continuing, sliding to a stop in front of the two.

"GUYS!!! THEY GOT HIM!!!! LILY AND THAT OTHER DUDE GOT HIM!!!! I JUST SAW THEM LEAVE THE PARK!!!" Matilda screeched, causing Ruby to flinch away.

"What? Crap, everyone to the exit! Heathcliff, get boss on your way. We all know his com link has been out of commission." She said hurriedly, sprinting as fast as her legs would carry her towards the exit. The other two, excluding Brand who was lagging behind slightly, were quickly running up beside her as they ran towards the exit.

"Matilda, what did you see?" Jackson asked.

"I saw Lily and the guy she was with leaving the area. I tried to catch up but they disappeared in the crowd and I couldn't find them." She replied.

"This isn't good. Who knows what they're going to do with him if we don't find him! They could do horrible horrible experiments on him or something!" Jackson said. The group finally slid to a stop outside the exit, looking around frantically. Unfortunately, there was no sign of Lily, the man she was with, or Julio. Brand hobbled up behind them, coming to a stop beside them.

"Have you found him yet?" He asked worriedly. The group collectively shook their heads.

"No, we haven't. They've likely left by now. They must know we would be after them once they got Flinch, so they're probably gone." Ruby said, scratching at her neck. Brand cursed under his breath, running one hand back through his hair.

"Okay. Alright. We can fix this, ok? All com links have trackers in them as well, so we should be able to find him." He said. He tapped on his watch a few times, and suddenly a hologram of a map appeared above it. On it, were many little dots. He swiped around a couple times, pressing on a few more things before the map zoomed in on one particular dot. It was quickly moving northeast.

"Alright everyone. I'm going to call the school bus right-" He began, immediately stopping as the dot suddenly disappeared. Everyone went quiet.

"Is...that...normal?" Jackson asked slowly, nervousness dripping from his voice. Everyone looked at him.

"No, Jackson. That isn't normal." Heathcliff said bluntly. Jackson laughed awkwardly before looking down at the ground.

"Alright kids. We need to get back to HQ. Now. We might be able to figure out what to do from there." Brand said, striding towards the car. The children followed suite, hopping in and buckling up. The group was quickly on their way back to HQ in a heartbeat.


	15. Waking up

Julio groaned as he rolled onto his back, senses slowly returning to him. He was sprawled out on something extremely soft and cushy at the moment. The memories of what happened suddenly came flooding back, and he jerked upwards, eyes shooting open. His harness was gone and he was in a bedroom that was obviously not his own. The walls were a baby blue, and the carpet was white. The bed he was previously lying on was a much darker shade of blue, and there was a bedside table that held a lava lamp and a plate with tomato soup and grilled cheese on it, still warm. Also on the plate was a small note. "I hope you're not allergic to anything. Sorry about having to take your power thingy and locking you in this room. Don't worry though, I'll check on you in a little bit. :D" It read. After he read the note, he immediately did what he was best at in stressful situations. Freak out. He freaked out for a good ten minutes before the door suddenly clicked behind him. He whirled around to face the person who entered the room.

"Oh! You're awake! Awesome! Are you ok? Drowsy? Nauseous? Sorry, we kinda had to tranquilize you." Lily said. Julio shrieked, which made her flinch away.

"Where am I? What is this place? Am I in your base? Are you going to kill me?" He cried. Lily immediately gained a panicked look.

"What? No!" She said worriedly.

"Are you going to chop me up and do horrible experiments on me and turn me into a mindless cyborg?" He asked. Lily shook her head furiously.

"No! I would never hurt somebody like that!" She cried. For a second, the two stood in silence, staring at eachother.

"Uhhhh...new plan!" Julio shouted. He rushed forward, tackling Lily to the ground and pinning her on her stomach to the ground. She kicked and flailed in distress, wide eyed.

"Ow! Let go! Please! Buddy! Help!" She cried out, tears pricking at her eyes.

A loud howl echoed through the halls, and Julio glanced up in surprise. Bounding down the hall was another dog bot. However this one, instead of being modeled after a german shepherd or a pitbull, it looked more like a beagle. With long ears and mostly brown head and white snout that went down its front and trailed to its arms and legs while there was some black across it's back. Finally, in the middle of its chest, was a small red dot.

"Hey! Let go of her right now!" It shouted, rushing up and grabbing Julio by the scruff and easily lifting him from the girl below.

"Are you alright, Lily?" It asked. She nodded, wiping off her tears and sniffling.

"Y-yes. I'm ok. Put him down please." She replied. Buddy gave the boy a look before placing him down like he had been asked. Lily crossed her arms with a frown.

"Ok, I get why you did that, but please don't do it again. It's really mean." She stated.

She sighed and shook her head, rubbing her shoulders where he had previously pinned her down.

"Okay, uh, you're not a scientist or anything, so you don't have to do any of the stuff they do. You can just, like, chill out and do whatever you want I guess? We have video game stations and an ice cream bar. Those are cool. I'll have somebody show you around. I promise you won't be here for long. Just until your friends...gang...teammates people agree to leave me alone." She explained. Julio's eyes lit up at the thought of an ice cream bar, but he frowned again. He wondered how easy it would be to escape. He needed a plan. His friends would likely be here soon, he hoped. If his communication implant was working he could contact them. He pinched his nose to activate it. Nothing. He blinked, pinching it another few times in a panicked manner as his stomach dropped. Lily looked over at him.

"Also, we did a check up on you to make sure we didn't mess up the tranquilizer amount and to make sure you were healthy, and found a thing in your nose. We took it out if that's what you're pinching your nose for." She said. His jaw dropped. Oh. So that's why it wasn't working.


	16. Video feed

As the NERDS landed in the playground they all took a running start towards the central table, almost tripping over each other in the process. They jumped into their seats and Ruby slammed her hands down onto the table.

"Benjamin! We need help!" She shouted. A small circular hole opened in the middle as a small orb popped out of it.

"I've heard. Agent Flinch has been captured, correct?" Benjamin said.

"Yeah. We need to track him down somehow. His com link is down, and that means so is his tracker. I think that Lily might have some kind of EMP device that's messing with them. Probably his upgrades too." Duncan stated. Benjamin buzzed and clicked as he spun in a circle.

"Yes, well, what would you like me to do?" he asked.

"We need camera feed from the park so we can track where exactly they went. From there we need feeds of the streets that they go down and track that too." Heathcliff said.

"Understood. It may take a few minutes. Please stand by." Benjamin tweeted. And stand by they did. For the most agonisingly slow ten minutes the group had ever felt in their lives, they waited tensely. But finally, Benjamin flew back over to them and projected an image before them.

"I have found the footage you've been looking for." He chirped.

"Play the feed." Ruby ordered. Immediately, the image began to play out a scene. On the screen, there were two highlighted figures. One was Julio, and one was the man who was with Lily. The man strode forward behind the boy and pressed a finger into his neck. Julio was barely able to struggle as the drug took effect, and he went limp in the mans arms. He lifted him up as another highlighted figure rushed up. It was Lily. She said something to the man, and they rushed off and out of the exit. The view changed to that of a street and a sidewalk. In a few seconds the three walked by the camera. Lily was looking around nervously, glancing exactly at the camera they watched from and cringed.

There were a few more swaps of area as they walked down the street, until they arrived to a seemingly abandoned area. Lily stopped the man, pointing over at the camera that was above and said something again. She rushed forward out of view for a couple of moments before the screen was suddenly passed by a bundle of clothing. It shifted about for a moment before Lily's face suddenly popped up in the screen. She fiddled around for a second before holding up a paper. It read 'I'm not going to hurt your friend. But if you want to have him back, you have to back off. If we're going to discuss terms, then meet me at boston airport at four pm tomorrow exactly. No powers, or I'll have my bots come and kick your butts. Gently. I'll be in the private jet on the runway. Please don't freak out.'. After holding it up for a few seconds the girl leaned back and let herself fall from the street light. She and the man then darted into an alley and disappeared.

The footage finally cut off, leaving the children looking nervously back and forth at one another.

"Well. At least he's ok?" Jackson said slowly. Ruby put her face in her hands, attempting not to freak out. She was allergic to that.

"Yeah. There's that. But still. It doesn't really look like we have much of a choice here. We need to go meet her. If worst comes to worst, we'll have to let Flinch stay with her." She said finally. The others stared at her in bewilderment.

"Leave him with her??? Are you kidding?" Matilda cried. Ruby adjusted her glasses, eyebrows furrowed.

"Yes. Despite everything I...I think she would keep true to her word, and not harm him. If she ever wanted to hurt anyone, I would know by now. But she has a goal, and I know she plans on not hurting anyone to get to it." She explained. Slowly, the others began to agree.

"Alright. So we meet her tomorrow. Great." Jackson said. The group was nervous, but strangely not as nervous as they could be.


	17. The meet up

Lily sat, legs crossed on the seats of the plane, doodling in her notebook. Data sat next to her, vibrating gently as if to emulate purring. Lily looked over at the plush bot before turning the notebook to it.

"What do you think, Data?" She asked. Data looked over. The girl had draw a large sketch of herself in the middle of a group of robots, holding a man and a woman's hands who stood next to her. Her parents. Data sat near the groups feet, seeming happy. Data beeped happily, hopping up and down slightly. Lily giggled and smiled.

"Awwww, thanks Data!" She said. There was a sudden hand on her shoulder, and she looked over.

"Hello miss, may I interrupt you for some snacks and drinks?" The deer bot said in a Italian accent. It had a long face and very small, grey horns atop its head. It was colored a mostly light brown save for the white on its stomach.

"Oh, yes please!" Lily said. The deer bot placed down a small platter full full of various snack on it, as well as a glass of pepsi to the side.

The deer bot left after Lily thanked her, and the girl started eating the food in front of her. For a few minutes, it continued to be mostly silent, save for Birdie who occasionally passed by as well as the deer bots who manned the plane. Birdie passed by again, and stopped by the window suddenly. Lily didn't take notice of his frozen look, instead beginning to talk to him.

"Hey Birdie? Do you think they're going to try to, like, destroy the plane? Because I really hope they won't. I mean, I think they would be courteous enough to not try to beat us up, but that's mostly because we have their friend. They would definitely beat us up if we didn't. I jus dunno. I know you were the one saying I would regret this, and I'm kinda starting to feel you're right, but there's still a chance it could go well, right?" She said. Birdie glanced over at her.

"I don't know. We're about to find out." He said, pointing over at the door to the plane.

Lily jerked straight up as it opened up. Who was to step through but the ones she had been waiting for.

"Oh my, uh, ok, hi. Uh, you can sit down across from me. Also buckle up because we're taking off as soon as you do." She stuttered. It was obvious that the group was tense as they proceeded to do so. The first one to talk was the blonde girl. Seemingly the leader.

"So. You have our friend and you want us to back down. We want our friend back but we don't plan on backing down. You want to negotiate, and here we are. Start talking." She said flatly. Lily gulped, laughing nervously.

"Uh, ok, but can you tell me your names first? I've just been calling all of you "you people" and I would rather not." She said. The group looked back and forth between one another before they looked back to their leader.

"We'll give you our codenames. My name is Pufferfish." She agreed.

"I'm Wheezer." The shorter girl said.

"Hodges." The red haired boy said bluntly.

"My names Gluestick." The tiny boy said.

"The names Braceface." The blonde boy grinned. Lily nodded.

"You have weird codenames. Mine is Lily. I, uh, don't have a codename." She said awkwardly.

"We knew that. We looked you up before." Hodges said shortly. The girl blinked, eyes widening for a moment before shaking her head. Pufferfish then held up a hand to stop anyone from talking.

"First of all, what did you do with Flinch? Is he safe, or no?" She asked. Lily's mouth opened into a small o and she grabbed a laptop from below the table.

"No no! He's totally fine. He seemed to really loosen up when they showed him the bakery, ice cream bar, and snack shop. I'll get you in touch now so you can see for yourselves!" She said. The group looked at her incredulously.

"You have those?" Wheezer asked. Lily shrugged, laughing awkwardly.


	18. Skype? Skype

The plane descended into an awkward silence once more as Lily fiddled with the computer, occasionally making a frustrated noise. Data gave her a small beep, which Lily responded to with a mocking beep of her own.

"I know what I'm doing. Hush." She whispered to it. Data seemed to roll it's eyes before settling back down. The other party was tense, simply looking around at he interior of the plane for any exits if everything went south. This was despite the fact that it was unlikely Lily would even be able to take one of them down. Much less all of them. She was a scrawny girl after all. There was a sudden click and beep from the computer, and Lily gave a small triumphant woop.

"Alright, here." She said, turning the computer to them and sliding it over. A small loading circle swirled around for a few seconds on the screen before a video popped up. Sitting in a bed of a room, was none other than Flinch.

"Hey guys!" He said cheerfully, waving slightly.

"Flinch!" The NERDS cried. Almost immediately the group began to launch off into different questions about various things, like if he was ok, where he was, and other such things. He snorted slightly, waving his hands.

"Hey, slow down. I can't hear all of you at once you know." He said. They quieted down, instead looking over to Pufferfish to allow her to speak first. She was quiet for a moment as she scratched at her chest before speaking.

"Are you safe? Where are you?" She asked.

"Yeah! It's pretty cool here. Right now I'm just in my bedroom here. This place is gigantic! But wait, hold on, before you guys ask anything else, is mama Rosa ok?" He answered. Gluestick nudged in and nodded.

"Don't worry, she's doing just fine. Have you seen the scientists?" He said. Flinch nodded and went to say something before the plane suddenly rumbled, beginning to move. He gave them a confused look.

"Where are you guys?" He asked.

"Plane." Hodges answered simply. Wheezer elbowed him in the ribs, making him flinch and rub at them before glaring slightly at the smaller girl.

"Yeah, plane. We can't fight on a plane when it's in the middle of flying now can we? It's just a precaution. As far as I know, Wheezer is the only one who can fly." Lily said, leaning over the table to peek her head into the camera. Flinch made a face but shrugged.

"Makes sense. But to answer the other question, yeah. I've seen them all! They're mostly just wandering around the place if they're not doing work time." He said. The NERDS blinked.

"They're allowed to do that?" Braceface said incredulously, looking at the girl sitting across from them.

"Of course they are! I'm not just going to make them work twenty four seven. That would create a high stress work environment and thusly lower productivity as well as the general mental health and well being of everyone involved!" Lily said firmly. It went quiet again.

"I'm really beginning to wonder if you actually qualify as a villain." Wheezer stated. A bright red blush stained Lily's cheeks as she shrunk down more into her seat. Data's face drew into a slightly more laughing look before hopping off the seats and beginning to make it's way off into the cockpit. Lily raised an eyebrow.

"And where are you going?" She asked. Data looked back at her and made a loud sound not unlike that of a dialup that a computer would make. Everyone cringed away from the sound and Lily glared.

"Well if you're going to be like that about it, then fine. Go. Leave me here to die." She said dramatically after a pause, draping herself over the chair with a mock hurt look. Data rolled it's eyes before continuing onto it's destination.

"Sorry about that. Data can be...really fussy sometimes." Lily apologized. For what seemed like the thousandth time, the area descended into an awkward silence that everyone seemed to be getting quickly familiar with.

{Guess whos been sick for the past week? Meeeee. I keep on messing up the schedual}


	19. Awkward before anger

As the flight had gone on, Lily's face had grown slowly more solemn. The awkwardness was still thick in the air, but it had faded significantly by now. After the NERDS had finished their call with Flinch, none of them had been sure what they should say. Lily, however, finally seemed to. She turned to the team, looking down at her hands and twiddling her thumbs.

"I know you want to get your friend back. But as I said before, I'm not going to give him back unless you promise that you won't try to stop me again. I know you're probably not going to do that, even if I gave him to you. Because that's just how you people work. You do what it takes to achieve an objective, don't you? You have to. Or else everything can go wrong. I can understand that. But you have to understand me too. I see all of you have powers, and even one of you being gone is a plus for me. If that wasn't the case. I wouldn't have taken him in the first place. Because I knew that even if I couldn't get you to stop completely-"

"You would cripple us." Hodges finished for her. She nodded, sparing him a small glance as she did so.

"Yeah. Each of you have special abilities that are crucial to make the team work. It's like a machine. It doesn't matter if you only take away one cog. Even a single missing piece could mean total collapse of the mechanism entirely. And that's what I want. I'm sure you know that already." She finished. The group in front of her all gave their various affirmations, and Lily sighed.

"Why are you doing this?" Gluestick asked. She stiffened, biting down on her tongue hard. She raised a hand to her mouth and looked away from them, almost panicked in a way. Pufferfish's eyebrows furrowed. At this close a distance in such a calm environment, she had been able to easily focus down on the small reactions she was having. From that, she could tell there was something very strange about this situation.

"Does it have something to do with when you and your parents suddenly disappeared? Where are your parents anyways?" Braceface asked. Lily tensed further.

Pufferfish could see her grip on the table harden. Her knuckles were white from how hard she was holding onto it.

"I can't tell you." Lily said through her teeth. She refused to look up at the team, pink and blue eyes fixated onto the table. Pufferfish frowned, crossing her arms.

"You know what? I think I've figured you out." She said. Lily blinked, finally looking up.

"What?" She asked, bewildered. She nearly shrunk back at the other girls scrutinizing gaze.

"All of this. I've seen this before. The weirdly specific kidnapping preferences. The files you've been stealing. Everything. I've done this song and dance before. Multiple times in fact." She said. Lily, if it was possible, seemed to get even more rigid than she had been before.

"What? What are you talking about?" She asked, eyes wide. Pufferfish glared, slamming a hand on the table and causing the entire group to jump.

"Don't play dumb with me." She said fiercely. Hodges reached out a hand to nervously touch her shoulder.

"Pufferfish, calm down." He said slowly. The girl whipped her head about to glare at him. He swallowed and immediately put his hands up in surrender, backing down. She turned back to Lily, who seemed to almost be shaking.

"All of this is some textbook case of trying to mess around with life. You want to know why I think you're doing this?" Pufferfish grit out.

"Stop." Lily said, shrinking away further.

"I think you're doing this because your parents are dead!" Pufferfish shouted. Lily immediately recoiled as if she had been punched.

"No!" She cried. Pufferfish had hit the nail on the head, and she knew it. There was suddenly a giant crunch and boom as the plane was thrown into a spiral. Lily suddenly regretted unhooking her seatbelt as she went flying from the seat. She hit the opposite window and saw exactly what had happened. One of the planes wings had been blown clean off. Who had done it? It was unfortunate that there wasn't much time for thinking, and all she could do was scream.


	20. Fall away

The door to the plane slammed outwards and flew out of its confines, quickly being drawn up by the wind as six children, along with three bird bots hopped out of it. Wheezer was almost immediately airborne as she turned on her inhalers. She grabbed onto Gluestick almost instinctively and tugged him into her side, leaving her other teammates to continue plummeting as she watched on horror.

"Bird bots! Grab the others!" Lily shouted, being picked up by Birdie herself. The bots reacted quickly, one grabbing Braceface and Hodges under its arms while the other picked up Pufferfish. The three bots flew up to meet with the other two as they watched the plane continue to plummet to the ground below.

"What...happened?" Lily asked, shaking like a leaf in a hurricane with wide eyes.

"It seems as if dear Cole has caught up with us. He blew our wing off with a missile." Birdie answered, pointing backwards. The group looked to where he was pointing, seeing a humanoid figure in the distance. It was large, covered in thick plates of black and dark grey armor that almost seemed to resemble something out of metroid. Protruding out of it's back was one large rectangular box that had a large empty hole in it. The box retracted into the armor as it began flying towards them with large flames coming from it's boots and the two large cylinders on its back. Lily's eyes narrowed as she turned to Birdie.

"How much juice do I have in these things?" She asked, smacking her legs.

"Miss Lily! I give you permission to do many things, but this is ludicrous!" Birdie explained.

"How much." Lily said firmly. Birdie stared at her for a few moments before letting out a long, tired sigh.

"Half an hour." He said finally. Lily grinned.

"More than enough. Thank you Birdie. I'll see you in a bit. Get those guys back to the ground." She said. With a single push, the girl let herself fall out of the bots arms. The children gave out various cries of surprise and protest before suddenly being shocked into silence at what happened. Slots suddenly seemed to slide away from her legs on either side, and out popped four cylinders. One for each slot. There was a small spark before flames suddenly erupted from the cylinders, sending Lily flying forwards. She wobbled for a second before straightening her flying and beginning to quickly shoot towards the figure. For a few seconds, nobody said anything. Suddenly Gluestick's voice broke the silence.

"Is she a robot?!?" He cried. Birdie shook his head.

"No. If you want an explanation, you'll have to wait until she is back. She can tell you. Until then, back to land." He replied. Like he had been ordered to do, Birdie brought the group back to solid ground. Minutes ticked by in an agonizingly slow fashion, making the NERDS likely more nervous than any of them would admit. But finally, almost the entire half hour later, Lily landed nearby. The cylinders clicked back into place in her legs as the panels slid back over and making it look almost as if they were never there in the first place. She jogged over, a strained look on her face.

"If Cole keeps doing this I'm really going to have to put him on lock." She said. Almost immediately she was bombarded with questions from the group. She shrunk down, sweat appearing on her brow as she whimpered slightly at the loud questions being shot at her. It was a good ten minutes until she was able to calm the group down.

"Can you explain what the heck just happened? Why do you have rockets in your legs? Who was that?" Braceface said. Lily sighed and rubbed her face.

"My legs are prosthetic. My parents made them after they had to get amputated after a car crash. As for that big armored guy, that was my brother, Cole. We're not exactly on good terms since I started..." She stopped, lips pursing. The group stared at her as she stared ahead for a few seconds before shaking her head.

"Sorry. I have to go. You're not going to give up, but neither am I. Just know your friend is safe." She said. Birdie didn't need to have anything said to him before he was once again sweeping Lily into his arms.

"Goodbye. It was nice to meet you on slightly better terms." Lily mumbled as Birdie's wings extended, and they took off. Again it was quiet for what seemed like the millionth time.

"I still have so many questions." Wheezer stated.

"Know what, Wheezer? I think we all do. I really think we all do." Hodges responded, staring up at where Lily and her bots had disappeared into.


	21. The end of a tiring day

Matilda groaned as she fell back into her seat, slumping back slightly.

"What a day." She said. The others nodded in agreement, all in similarly tired positions. The day had been exhausting despite mostly nothing happening save for the end.

"Mr. Brand is gonna chew us out for not capturing Lily or figuring out where Flinch is." Jackson sighed.

"At least we know he's ok. And we also have other things to go on. Like, we know she's trying to resurrect her parents, she has a brother, and she has robotic legs! That's something, right?" Duncan said, trying to bring some energy back to the group.

"I guess. But it doesn't really do anything for us. We still don't know where her base is, or how she has all those robots, or even any good way to shut off said robots without using a device that would shut off our upgrades in the process." Heathcliff retorted. Duncan slumped slightly more in his seat at that. The rest of the ride back to The Playground was mostly silent, nothing much left to say about the matter.

When they finally landed and exited the school bus, they were met by both Brand and Deprankova. Deprankova almost immediately began checking the group over for injuries like a worried mother.

"Are all of you alright? Were any of you hit by any shrapnel? Did Lily's bots injure you?" She asked quickly.

"We're fine." Jackson said, waving her off embarrassedly before she could continue to worry over them.

"Yeah, it's ok. Don't worry." Ruby told her.

Brand waved her away slightly from the group, frowning. Deprankova gave him a look as he went to say something and he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"That's...good. Were you able to get Julio back? Or at least gain new information?" He said.

"No, we couldn't get him back. But we did get in a video call with him, and it looks like he's as safe as can be." Ruby said.

"I doubt he's in any danger. I mean, Lily probably wouldn't even have it in her to stomp an ant, much less hurt Julio." Matilda laughed. Ruby elbowed her before clearing her throat.

"Right...well, we don't have any clues on where exactly her base is or anything too extremely important, but we do at least have a couple things to go on." She stated.

Brand nodded stiffly, biting back any sourness on the failure of bringing anything useful to the table.

"Well then, you are all dismissed. Get some rest." He said before turning on his heel and disappearing back into The Playground.

For a few moments the NERDS stared at where he had gone off to.

"Well, uh, that went better than expected." Heathcliff said.

"I guess so. At least we didn't get chewed out." Jackson replied. Ruby sighed, rubbing her temples and shaking her head. Duncan glanced over at her with a slightly concerned look.

"Ruby? You ok?" He asked. His teammate waved him off, letting out a long breath.

"I'm fine. Just need to think. And sleep for that matter." She responded. And with that, she turned and walked away from the group, back to the exit. Duncan rubbed the back of his head awkwardly and turned back to the group.

"Well then. I guess I'll see you guys tomorrow?" He said. The others nodded in agreement.

"Yeah. Pretty sure I'm going to be late for dinner if I stay any longer too." Jackson replied.

"Same here." Matilda chuckled.

"I think I'm going to stay here and do some more research." Heathcliff said. His friends looked at him strangely.

"Why? Aren't you tired?" Duncan asked. Heathcliff shrugged and pushed his glasses up.

"I am, but there's some stuff that I want to look at." He said dismissively.

"You do you I guess." Jackson snorted. Heathcliff gave him an icy glare, making him shrink slightly and chuckle nervously.

"I will, in fact. You all can go." Heathcliff said as he took his eyes back off of Jackson.

With that, the team took his advice, breaking off one by one and going back to the exits after saying their goodbyes, eager to get home to their families and comfortable beds. This was save for Heathcliff of course, who stayed in that position for a while longer, simply thinking before finally turning away to continue on his path towards a few empty computers on the side of the room. There were things to do.


	22. Not a bad person

"Come on! Keep up! We're almost there!" Lily shouted excitedly back at Julio, who was quite obviously heaving for breath as he tried desperately to keep up with the girl's seemingly record breaking speed. She slowed down slightly to run beside him and patted him on the back.

"Where are we even going?" He panted. Lily laughed, grinning widely.

"I told you! You'll see." She replied happily, not even winded.

They continued running down the halls, occasionally stopping to say hello to one of the bots or a wandering scientist before keeping on. Eventually the two came to a large iron pair of doors with a panel to the right of it. A sign above it read "Facility D". This confused Julio slightly, as he had not seen any other doors with signs like this before.

"Uh, what is this? I haven't seen any other of these facility sign things. And I've wandered around a lot." He said. Lily stopped for a moment and turned to him to begin an explanation.

"Well, that's because you're living in facility a. We have facility A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and zero. Where you live is the biggest area in this entire place. It's about the size of a large town. It covers a heck of a lot of the underground space. The other places are big, but not as big as A is. It's pretty amazing! That's part of the reason we have bots stationed everywhere with maps and signs and stuff. We don't want anyone getting lost! The other facilities are mostly off limits for most of the people here, unless they're given express permission that is. I could talk forever about this place. This place has been in the works for years upon years upon years. It's been here for a long time, and has been worked on as long as it's been built. It didn't used to be so high tech and stuff, ya know! But as years went by, my family really got on it! It's just awesome. I could talk forever about it. But I still have to show you the thing! So come on, it's right through here." She explained, placing her hand on the panel beside the door.

The panel glowed green for a moment before beeping. The doors slid open and Lily grabbed Julio's wrist, tugging him through.

The two walked down a long hall to yet another door. Through this one there were various loud sounds of dogs barking, birds chirping, and many many other animals. Lily bounced on her heels, grinning so wide it seemed like it would split her face. She reached out, grabbed the handle of the door, and pushed.

"Flinch, I would like to introduce you to one of our best facilities. Welcome to the rescue!" She declared. Julio stepped inside, and nearly froze up at what he saw.

It was a gigantic open field with lights above that resembled sunlight that beamed down onto the ground. All around were various animals running and playing happily in the grass, or perched in the very real trees planted around the area. Dogs, cats, birds, foxes, there was even a large barn to the right with a fence surrounding a few horses, and a few separate pens that housed chickens, pigs, cows, and all manner of other animals you would normally find in a farm. Julio's jaw dropped, gazing around the area.

"What...is this?" He asked slowly. Lily giggled at his question, still bouncing on her heels.

"This is what we call the rescue. We save animals from all around the U.S.A. and bring them here to be rehabilitated. We have a good couple hundred animals we keep here. We save them from abuse and neglect, hoarding situations, and other general things like if they happened to get hit by a car or something! After we rehabilitate them, they'll either be given new homes with good families, or sent back out to the wild where they belong. This is the second biggest facility we have here. All of this stuff around the place is real! Except for the light of course. But we make sure they go to the actual outside lots. Feel free to look around! Just don't make the geese mad." She said.

With that, she turned and began sprinting towards a group of dogs, who all immediately began to bark and wag their tails as they noticed her, some running to her as well. Julio jumped slightly as he felt something brush against his leg, looking down to find a cat purring gently and rubbing up against him. A smile worked it's way across his face as he knelt down to pet the feline.

"She really isn't a bad person, huh." He stated with a chuckle, smile widening slightly as ran his hand along the animal.

It was a large grey ragdoll cat with one big blue eye, the other seeming to be missing. It was a fairly chunky as well, or at least it seemed that way. It's fur could very well just make it seem like that. It put it's front paws on one of his knees, pushing up into his hand and purring in contentment.

Julio glanced back up to where Lily stood, or sat rather at the moment. She rolled around, furiously attempting to pet all of the dogs at once despite it being impossible. The dogs slobbered all over her beaming face as she did so, obviously happy. He lifted the cat up into his arms, jogging over.

"You look like you're having fun." He said.

Lily stopped petting the dogs, although they continued to lick her despite that fact.

"I always do. Oh! And it looks like you met thunder, huh? He's an old man. Found him on the streets in texas." She replied, finally lifting herself from the hoard of dogs. She stepped around them, nudging some in the side gently with her leg to get over to him. When she did, she proceeded to pet the cat. It struggled in Julio's arms before suddenly leaping to Lily, clambering onto her shoulders.

"He seems really nice." Julio stated, giving the cat another scratch behind the ears. Lily nodded in confirmation.

"Absolutely. Here, come with me and I can show you around the place, since you seemed to get caught up." She said, grabbing his hand once more to lead him around the facility. No, she wasn't a bad person at all.


	23. Comfy cozy

The sun shone down onto the six children and their director walked down the street. They were all tired from a mission they had just gone through, but none of them had been hurt. Holiday had suggested he give the children more of a reward system for when they did a good job recently, so he was taking the group to a nearby cafe for a treat, although he knew there was not a likely chance that they would have anything that Ruby would not be allergic to. It was the thought that counted, anyway. Personally he thought Holiday coddled the team too much, but he wasn't about to deny her a simple request.

"How much longer do we have to go? I wanna sit down for the rest of the day." Matilda groaned. Jackson rolled his eyes and scoffed slightly.

"Says the one who got to be up in the air half the time. Think of us!" He said. Matilda glared at him, reaching up and pulling him down into a headlock. He squirmed for a minute as the others laughed at his predicament, save for Brand who simply shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose before Ruby finally pulled the two apart.

"Calm down, you two. We're here. It's right across the road." She said, pointing.

The group looked to where their leader pointed, seeing that the cafe was, indeed, right there across the street. Matilda wooped, releasing Jackson from her iron hold to begin running towards the building.

"Whoever's last is a rotten egg!" She called. Jackson glared, immediately starting after her.

"Hey! That's no fair! You got a head start!" He shouted. The small girl simply turned her head to give him a raspberry, continuing her dash. Heathcliff crossed his arms and rolled his eyes, shaking his head slightly at his teammates antics.

"Do they really have to turn everything into a competition?" He groaned. Duncan chuckled, keeping an eye on the two.

"Well, that's just them for you." He said.

"I guess it is. Come on, let's make sure they don't break anything. Specifically each others bones." Brand stated. The three children nodded, speeding up slightly to catch up with the other two.

When the group had finally reconnected with their missing teammates, they entered the cafe. It was a cozy little place with circular tables set in lines around the area, as well as some booths lined along the back most corners. There were not many people there at the moment, only about five in total. Again, a comfortable enough place.

The six began reading over the menu to see what they would get, unaware of the two people that had already caught sight of them. That is until Duncan began to nervously tug at Brands sleeve. It took a few moments for him to look down, brow raised in equal parts confusion and slight annoyance.

"What is it?" He asked. Duncan swallowed, pointing to one of the very back booths. Visible from the seats was one young woman, and a very familiar shock of pure white hair. Brands eyes narrowed, the NERDS seeming to now notice the predicament.

"What's wrong?" Matilda asked. Brand simply mimicked Duncan, pointing at the girl in the booth. The groups collective eyes shot open, looking between each other for a couple seconds before going back to Brand.

"Alright. You five find a table and sit for a minute. I'm going to talk to her. Be ready for if things go sideways." He said.

Ruby opened her mouth to protest, but Brand turned his head to give her a look, quickly shutting her up, although she did give him a heated glare. By this point, both figures had shrunken into the corner of the booth, trying desperately not to be noticed.

Brand strode over, stepping in front of the booth. He noticed that the man beside her was the very same man the team had seen with Lily at the park. What a coincidence.

"I should introduce myself. My name is Alexander Brand. I lead the team. What a surprise to see you here, Lily." He stated. The small girl swallowed hard before opening and closing her mouth like a fish put of water for a good few seconds before sound decided to come out.

"B-bagel." She choked. Brand blinked, bewildered by the first words out of her mouth.

"...Pardon?" He asked. Lily swallowed once more, attempting to shrink into the large pink hoodie she wore.

"Do you bagel? I mean, want. Do want bagel? I MEAN DO YOU WANT A BAGEL?" She shouted.

All motion in the room suddenly stopped as attention turned to them. Lily flushed a bright red color, sinking her head and limbs farther into her body. It took a few seconds for activity to continue after the outburst. Brand saw the team on the other corner of the cafe, staring at them with equal parts confused and amused expressions. Brand cleared his throat, looking back at Lily and the man. The man already had his head in his hands, shaking his head slowly with a pitying look on his face. Brand couldn't tell whether it was at Lily or himself.

"Uh, I...I suppose...so?" He said slowly. He slid into the seat across from the two, coughing awkwardly. Of all meetings with a villain, he had never had or ever thought he would have been loudly and awkwardly asked if he would like a bagel in a cafe.


	24. A tense talk

"...So. You're trying to revive your parents." Brand said to the child sitting across from him. Lily swallowed and nodded, seeming as if she was trying to disappear into Birdie's side.

"Why?" Brand asked. Lily looked away slightly as Birdie gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder.

"Because I...need them." She replied finally, continuing to squirm in her seat. Brand sat back in his chair, eyebrows furrowing as he examined her closely. Her nervous and awkward demeanour was...disarming to say the least. He doubted a person in the world would ever even expect someone like her to be any kind of criminal, and yet there she was, sitting in front of him and squirming around like a worm on a hook under his scrutinizing gaze.

"You do realize that this would be the perfect time to take you in, right? We could simply pick you up and take you back to our headquarters, thus ending this entire thing once and for all." He stated, looking her in the eyes. And for the first time, she finally met them.

"But you can't, and wont. I could easily raise a fuss, and bring a lot of attention to you. And with you around so many other kids, it would be more than a little suspicious. Birdie could also easily knock you out if he wanted. I could also call in reinforcements. There are too many people around to risk anything." She replied, her cotton candy colored eyes seeming to almost pierce him for a quick second before filling with doubt and nervousness, seeming to barely believe in her own words. Brand leaned back once more, crossing his arms with a hum.

"Well, you're not wrong." He said with a sigh.

Lily seemed to let out a small breath of relief, going back to shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

"So, ah, a-am I free to go?" She asked tensely.

"Yes." Brand said flatly. The words didn't sit well on his tongue. He didn't like the fact that he was just going to let a villain go when she was right there in front of him. But like she had stated, there was nothing that he could do. If she hadn't kidnapped Flinch, he could have had the boy use his superspeed to grab her and sprint out to the School Bus before anyone could even see or react to it. But she had, and he couldn't.

He was suddenly broke out of his thoughts by the voice of a young woman next to the three's table.

"Here are your orders." She said, placing two plates in front of them, as well as three drinks. The one placed in front of himself was a simple toasted everything bagel with cream cheese as well as a cup of black coffee. Placed in front of Lily was a giant burger with a cup of what he could guess was sprite. Next to Birdie was a simple cup of water and ice.

The girls eyes sparkled as soon as the food was placed before her, her nervous demeanour seeming to fade away completely and barely even taking a moment to say her thanks before grabbing the burger and digging into it with relish, obviously savouring every bite. Brand raised a brow at her apparent ravenous appetite, pushing down a chuckle.

"For such a drawn in girl, you don't hold back with your food, do you?" He said. Lily blinked slightly, swallowing down the bit of food still in her mouth before nodding happily.

"Yeah! Burgers are great! My parents never let me have burgers. A lot of other things too. Something about needing to train me to survive on less calories. But that's fine! I just got to eat as many as I can before I bring them back. They're really yummy!" She laughed, taking another big bite of the food.

Brand's eyebrows furrowed. He didn't particularly like how that sentence sounded in any way. He noticed that the words seemed to make Birdie uncomfortable as well, the bot looking away with pursed lips. It made Brand suspicious to say the least.

"What do you mean by not giving you burgers and a lot of other things? And why were they training you to "survive on less calories" as you say?" He asked. Once again Lily needed to swallow another bite to answer.

"Well, they wouldn't let me eat any kinds of junk food at all, or soda, or candy, or really any of that kind of thing. And they never told me why they needed to train that into me. But I'm sure they were just making sure I was healthy!" She replied. Brand's eyebrows furrowed further. No, he didn't like how that sounded at all. But he held his tongue for the moment.

After a couple more minutes, the girl was able to shovel the rest of the food, along with the drink, down her throat, giving Birdie a small nudge once she was done.

"It's been nice to meet you, Mr. Brand, but I have to go now. I'll pay for everything, so don't worry about it." She said, sliding out of her seat. Brand gave a terse nod, saying nothing as the girl quickly rushed over to the front counter with her guardian in tow, saying a few things before pulling a few dollars out of her pocket and giving some to the woman at the desk and putting the rest in the tip jar before practically sprinting out the door. He could see the NERDS looking at him, tense and ready to jump after her, but he shook his head as he stood up.

A few thoughts circulated through his head as he walked over to the other children's table, but he pushed them away for the moment. For now, he simply wished to get home.


	25. Stress back home

"...Ruby? Are you...ok?" Duncan asked tentatively. The NERDS itchy leader currently sat at her place at the mission table, face planted firmly into it. She gave a loud, frustrated sound that was almost somewhere in between a groan and a roar. The rest of the NERDS exchanged similar worried glances for a moment before looking back at the girl. After a couple moments she finally sat up, the expression on her face clearly vexed beyond belief.

"This is the fourth time we've had a chance to catch her. The fourth. I can't believe Brand just let her off like that!" She cried, throwing her hands up.

"Well, I mean, he did say it was too crowded to make a fuss. We would have drawn attention to ourselves." Matilda stated, slightly nervous at the tense atmosphere around Ruby.

"We could have figured something out!" Ruby shot back in frustration.

"Look. We know you're mad, but you have to calm down. We'll have all the chances we need, alright? It's not over yet." Heathcliff said carefully, putting his hands up in a soothing gesture. Ruby's eyes shot to glare at him harshly, almost seeming to twitch.

"It doesn't matter that it's not over. What matters is exactly how many times she's been able to get away, and the fact that we have failed so many times. We've never gone past two!!! We're supposed to be the best team in this entire organization!!!" Ruby shouted, her hands waving about almost frantically.

The NERDS once again exchanged a look before once again, Heathcliff spoke up.

"Well...I mean, yeah, but it isn't our fault. She has hundreds of robots protecting her, if not more. All those bots give her time to run, so again, it's not our fault that it happens." He said gently. Ruby let out another groan, planting her face in her hands.

"That still doesn't take away from the fact that this has been the forty-sixth time that she has escaped! I'm not even kidding! She has been blasting through our teams for the past couple months, and the closest they've gotten so far was when one of us was able to use their upgrades to tase her and drag her out the front door before promptly being tossed away by one of the bots. Even the Troublemakers weren't able to catch her!" She grumbled, letting her head drop onto the table with yet another dejected groan. Jackson rounded the table to pat her on the back slightly, a very slight look of sympathy on his face.

"Aw, don't get your pants in a bunch about it. It'll be fine. I'm sure we at least have a good few tries left." He said. Once again, they were met with a groan. Matilda sighed and crossed her arms.

"Just try to forget about it for now. Next time we meet her, for all we know we can just ask her nicely to let us arrest her and that will be that. We'll have better luck next time." She said. Duncan nodded and gave Ruby a comforting smile despite the fact that she couldn't see it.

"Yeah. I'm sure you're just tired, Ruby. It's been a long day, and I'm sure getting some sleep would be helpful." He said gently. Ruby finally tilted her head up to look at the group, still looking stressed as ever, but with a more defeated look than before. She ran a hand back through her hair and let out a sigh.

"Fine. Let's all just go home and forget this happened. We can regroup in the morning and figure out a game plan for next time we see her once we get to the playground after school." She said. The group quickly agreed, almost immediately dispersing from their stressed leader to the exits, eager to remove themselves from the tense atmosphere.

Ruby simply sat there for another few minutes, grumbling under her breath and glaring at the table. She had never failed to capture a villain this many times. Never. The fact that said villain had also escaped every single team they had multiple times stressed her out possibly more than she had ever been before, which was saying something. It didn't help that she knew Lily should already be under wraps, considering how extremely soft hearted and weak bodied she seemed. She could barely even be considered a villain, yet she was still slippery enough to fall from their grasp every time she popped up.

Ruby slammed a fist into the table with a growl before taking a deep breath and scratching at her stomach. She was allergic to irrational anger. She shook her head, finally standing up to walk to the exits. She truly hoped that it was the final time she slipped through their fingers.


	26. Comfort in cats

It was a strange feeling to Julio to already be so used to being in Lily's base. Originally, if one had told him that he was going to be kidnapped by an affable villain and feel right at home in just a short time of being in the base, he would have called the person crazy. And yet, there he was, lying down in the middle of a field in said base, utterly covered in purring, kneading, sleeping balls of fur otherwise known as cats, and completely and utterly content with his situation.

He was unsure if this was indicative of getting a case of stockholm syndrome, but he severely hoped not, and put the thought to the side. He turned his head as he heard the door of the area slide open, watching as the familiar form of Lily shambled inside. He raised a free hand slightly to wave at her, and she gave a half-hearted one in return as she walked over and promptly fell face first next to him, although careful not to land on any of the cats.

"Hey, Lily. You seem down." Julio said, almost bluntly. The smaller girl let out a groan, shifting her head to look at him. She looked absolutely exhausted and stressed, to say the least.

"That's an understatement. I ran into your team again and met your boss." She replied weakly.

Julio's eyebrows shot up as he gave her a wide eyed and disbelieving look, needing to give the sentence another thought over before he was able to answer.

"What??? Again? And you met Brand?" He asked incredulously. Lily nodded miserably, planting her face in the ground again as she reached out to bury her hand into the fur of one of the animals and beginning to pet it.

"Yeah. He's scary. He looked like he was going to kill me." She said. Julio cringed, hand coming up to rub the back of his neck.

"Yeah. He probably wasn't, don't worry. He just has a scary resting face." He reassured. Lily gave a small nod, mumbling something else under her breath and rolling over so she could pull one of the cats onto her chest. The two sat in silence for a few more minutes, watching from afar as robots milled around the rooms and the field, never staying in one place for long.

"...Uh, so. How long do you think I have to stay here? My mama Rosa is probably really worried about me." Julio said after a minute. Lily tensed, her hand freezing up for a moment. She didn't answer for a while, simply looking away from him.

"Well, uh, I really hope not much longer. A month at the longest I hope. I've been getting as many people and blueprints in here as I could so we could speed up the process and have everyone back home sooner rather than later, but what I'm doing kind of takes a lot of time. If I'm not able to get it done fast enough, I'm going to need to figure out something with you and everyone else. They all have families that are worrying about them, and having to keep them away from each other is killing me. It's just a situation I'm going to have to deal with. But one way or another, I'm determined not to keep you longer than I need to." She explained. Julio nodded slightly, shifting quietly as silence came over the two once again.

"...Hey. What's that cat's name?" He asked after a moment, attempting to steer the mood away from what was careening towards tense. Lily blinked, looking down at the cat on her chest. It was large and fat to boot, with large blue eyes and mostly white save for the soft orange colors on its ears, face, and tail.

"Oh! This is Cream. She's a cream point ragdoll. She's actually about to be ready to be adopted out once she's had her litter and taken care of them and whatnot." She answered, scratching the cat behind the ears. Julio sat up finally, sending the other cats that had been laying across his chest to the side, almost seeming vandalized as they shifted off of him.

"That's nice. How long have you had her?" He responded. Lily grinned as she sat up and placed the aforementioned cat into her lap, her previous mood quickly dripping away as she quickly began talking about her.

Julio was happy to sit back and listen as she talked. It almost reminded him of how Duncan would spout on about every invention he saw or made, and how happy it made him to do so. Yes, it was still a strange feeling to be feeling as comfortable as he was in company with her, but he couldn't say it couldn't possibly work to his advantage in the future. But for now, even though he was never really the best at waiting, he would wait for the time to come when he could finally leave, and he could go home.


	27. A little party never killed anyone

"Finally! It's been forever since we've done a mission that has a little bit of party involved!" Braceface said happily, a grin on his face. His enthusiasm was quite obviously not shared by his teammates, who groaned and cringed instead.

"We're not going to party, Braceface. It's an in and out mission. Find Mantina before the bad guys do, capture him, and get out." Pufferfish said stiffly, giving the boy a look. He rolled his eyes, leaning back and crossing his arms with a huff.

"You're no fun. You guys just don't know how to have a good time." He said.

"Hundreds of intoxicated teens jumping around and waving glowsticks to loud horrible music in a warehouse they definitely shouldn't be in. Gee, I'm not sure why anybody wouldn't love it." Hodges drawled sarcastically. Braceface stuck his tongue out at him, and Ms. Deprankova waved her hands to catch the groups attention.

"Now now, don't fight. We're trying to make this mission quick as possible so we can minimize our risk of being found by the enemy. You can have fun, but keep your eyes open. Once you find Manitina, acquire him as quick and as quietly as possible. By that point you may already be in danger." She explained.

"Indeed. Pufferfish, you're going to need to suck up that rave allergy and get in there so you can pinpoint where the goons are and make a good plan of action to avoid being seen or found out by anyone." Brand said, looking at the girl from his place on the other side of the bus. She nodded slightly despite the obvious pulled tight look of someone who very much did not want to do so.

"Understood." She said, crossing her arms. Brand shrugged off the look she gave him and shook his head with a small sigh.

"Don't worry, children. I'm sure you'll do fine." Deprankova said with a smile.

"Should we even be doing this? I mean, we're kids. Most of the people there are at least going to be in their twenties. Isn't little kids walking around going to draw attention?" Gluestick asked.

"Just keep low and don't talk to anyone and you should be fine. We'll be giving you clothes to help you blend in." Brand said. The groups attention suddenly turned over towards the front as the Lunch Lady suddenly popped his head around, motioning slightly towards the windows.

"Speaking of clothes, you should start getting into them. We're getting close to the drop." He said. The team nodded, quickly standing up as Deprankova began to hand out the groups various packs. They began to pull on the clothes, those other than Jackson occasionally groaning or rolling their eyes at the assortment of hoodies with bright neon markings, baggy sweatpants, band t shirts, beanies, and bright sneakers.

"Do we really have to do this? Why can't we just wait outside for him?" Flinch grumbled slightly as he pulled a hoodie on.

"You know why, Flinch. There are going to be baddies everywhere, and you don't want to make yourself sitting ducks where anyone can get at you." Brand said plainly, giving the jittery boy a look. Flinch groaned again, sitting back in his seat as the school bus continued to rocket along.

Within a few more minutes, the Lunch Lady once again poked his head around towards the group.

"Everyone ready? We're over the drop." He said. The team quickly began getting up despite most of them still grumbling and reluctant, Brand standing up to open the door for them and causing wind to blast through the bus.

"Alright, you all know your mission. Make it quick, don't get caught, don't cause a ruckus, and make sure that you get Mantina back safely. That's all. Good luck, team." He said. The group nodded, hopping off the bus and into the open air below.

It was dark outside despite the moon shining down, the trees along the small dirt road blocking most of the light from it. Cold too. It seemed like the only sounds were the chirps of crickets and the occasional whistle of wind, but distantly a loud, pounding sort of music could be heard. Once the team had landed, they were quick to toss their parachutes into the bushes as Ruby easily took the lead.

"Alright everyone. Once we get there, we're going to need to get in through a back entrance or window somewhere. We don't want people see us come in, especially not any goons that might be guarding the place if they're already there. Wheezer, I need you in the air to check how far it is and if there's anybody outside we should be careful of." She said. The other girl nodded, firing up her inhalers.

"On it." She said, blasting off into the night sky, and only a minute later, her voice rang through the groups heads.

"Got it. It's about two miles from you. Doesn't look like anybody is out, but might want to be careful anyway. There's a couple windows out back we could get through too." She said.

"Affirmative. Stay on the roof and keep watch. If anyone comes around, notify us immediately." Pufferfish said, straightening.

"Yup." Came Wheezer's voice once more before finally cutting out. Pufferfish rubbed the bridge of her nose and scratched at her arm slightly, turning to the group and gesturing towards the road with her head.

"Alright. Lets go. Just hope we can get this over with quickly." She sighed, turning and trudging ahead, all the team following her in a similarly unenthusiastic walk. This of course was save for Jackson, who bounced along like he had just won the lottery.

{Motivation motivation where have you gone? Sorry for the late updates on anything, I'm in another creative drought and its hard to get through. I'll still do my best to get stuff out though, so hopefully no worries. Just letting yall know so you dont stress about me abandoning the stories or anything}


	28. Here we go again

The night was dark, yet somehow Lily still was wearing sunglasses, attempting to shield her fragile eyes from the bright flashes and pulses from the warehouse just beyond the treeline where she sat. She watched the screen of her computer closely, tapping away on it occasionally as the video shown on it moved. She reached up, tapping on her earpiece and leaning back.

"Birdie, what's your status? Have you found him yet? Anybody to worry about in there?" She asked. There was a small crackle before the bot's voice came through.

"My status is quite annoyed, Miss Lily. Young women keep attempting to engage in flirtatious dance with me, and I do not much appreciate it. As for our sir, no I have not yet found him. But there do seem to be a few goons on the premise. However it seems like very few, so I assume most of their party has not shown yet. But it seems your new little cam bot should be clear for takeoff. Like I thought, nobody is keeping any eyes on the rafters." Birdie said, the sound of music faintly blasting in the background of the sound.

"Alright. Just keep your eyes out and steer clear of the goons. I'm activating cam bot now." Lily said, tapping a couple more buttons on the computer.

Within a few moments, an image appeared on the screen. A live video, rather, of the inside of the warehouse just behind the girl, with flashing lights and pumping music and a crowd of people having oh so much fun, never minding to look up at all. Lily could only imagine they would be confused if they did, and happened to see her cam bot. A small metal ball with a camera lens in the front, about the size of a golf ball. She had worked on it for a couple of weeks, and was glad to say that it was working perfectly. At least she hoped. She hadn't yet conducted a field test on the little thing. She could imagine it, hovering in the rafters, safely away from any grabbing hands, or shooting guns that may occupy the warehouse.

For a second, Lily smiled brightly. She always did love when a project worked. However that smile disappeared when she heard a small, distant noise that was beginning to get closer at a rapid pace, somehow audible even over the pounding music of the warehouse behind her. For a couple moments, she thought it may be a very loud car. However as the sound got closer, it was evident it was coming from the air. Not the ground. And after a second, she froze. The sound was familiar now. Like the sounds her own legs made when the flames erupted from them in flight. Like the flames out of two particular inhaler looking objects connected to a particular enemy who seemed to very much like punching her bots out of commission.

"You have to be kidding me." Lily said under her breath, hoping desperately it wasn't what she thought it was.

The girl gulped, peeking around the tree she was huddled behind and into the sky. Surely enough, a few moments later, a dark figure came flying into view, propelled by two large flames from the things in her hands. Lily could only hope she wasn't visible as the figure stopped above the warehouse, hovering for a minute as she seemed to look around. After an eternity seemed to pass, the figure slowly dropped behind the warehouse, the sound of rockets finally stopping. Almost immediately Lilly ducked back behind the tree, tapping her earpiece with a panicked motion.

"Birdie! Birdie are you there? Please answer." She said quickly in a hushed tone, her foot tapping nervously as she waited for a response.

"I am here. What's happening? Are you alright? Do we need to retreat?" The bots voice came through after what seemed like an eternity.

"Oh thank god. Yes, I'm ok. And it's possible we might need to retreat soon. I just saw one of those people from that team fly overhead and drop behind the warehouse." Lily replied, relief dripping from her voice.

"You must be joking." Birdie replied incredulously.

"I really wish I was. But it seems like they're everywhere we are now. I'll bet the others are going to be here soon. I doubt they would send one alone. It's likely that they're scouting it out." Lily said, leaning back.

"They may be looking for the same man we are." Birdie stated.

"Crap. You're right. Ok. Ok. Just keep an eye out. I'll try to stay hidden. If they enter the building, make sure they don't see you. They already know your human model. If they come in, I'll try to keep them in cam bot's sights. " Lily replied, hunching back over her computer with a frown etched into her face.

"Affirmative. Stay safe." Birdie said. Then, with a crackle, he was gone. Lily shivered, feeling more alone and in the open than ever. Of course she had more bots on standby, but none so close to her. She hadn't wanted to cause a scene. She only wish she had one of the bear bots don one of their human models so one could be with her in case things went sideways. However all she could do was wait.

So wait she did. For minutes that stretched on, she waited, keeping her eyes open and her ears strained for noise other than the music from the warehouse. It took much less time than she would have hoped to see four familiar figures darting up the road towards the warehouse. Lily sucked in a breath, once more ducking behind the tree and curling up slightly, closing the laptop so the noise from the video on screen wouldn't alert the group. She held her breath, hearing as they passed her hiding spot.

"I still don't like this. I would rather be anywhere else. We should just hide on the roof and wait for the guy to come out." The redheaded boy grained as they jogged past.

"Aw, can't deal with a little party?" The blonde boy beside him teased.

"Quiet, you two. The sooner we get out, the better. We can fight later. We just need to get the guy and get out. Period." The girl said. Lily swallowed a lump in her throat. Birdie was right.

She relaxed as they finally went behind the warehouse, letting out a sigh of relief as she tapped her earpiece.

"Birdie, they're here. And you were right. Better kick into high gear." She said.

"Noted. I'll be careful." Came Birdies answer after a moment.

"Right. Good luck." Lily said, once again tapping the earpiece. She took a deep breath and let it out, shoving down her panic. She could do this. All she needed to do was wait.


	29. Bright light

The back door of the warehouse creaked slowly open, the five children peeking through to scan the hall before stepping inside.

"Alright everyone. You know the drill. Gluestick, Wheezer, you two try to find some hidden spots and flank the main area to keep an eye out for our guy, and any possible goons. Try to keep out of sight. Hodges, you're going to patrol the other areas of the warehouse, as will I. Again, try to keep out of sight from anybody wandering about. Braceface, you're on roof watch. Make sure our guy doesn't get out, and inform us if any other undesirables get in. Understood?" Pufferfish said, looking around at her teammates with her arms crossed. The four nodded quickly, almost immediately darting off to their respective jobs.

Wheezer and Gluestick jogged along together, following the sound of blaring music towards the central room, only stopping when they arrived at a door leading to where it was all coming from, as well as the lights shining through the cracks on the bottom. The two glanced at each other, slightly hesitant.

"Right, so. We should probably just take a glance in for now, and look for good hiding spots where we won't be seen, and then look for a good route to get there, then go and start our watch. Sound good?" Gluestick told Wheezer. The girl nodded, stepping towards the door and opening it just a crack. The two peeked through, scanning the room bustling with people.

"Geez. I can barely even pick out any spots from how dark it is in the places without the lights. Nevermind the people everywhere." Wheezer said quietly as she looked about. Gluestick nodded in agreement, continuing his search.

It took a couple minutes, but finally Gluestick spotted something.

"Hey, look over there." He told Wheezer, pointing over to the other side of the crowded room. She narrowed her eyes, scanning the place he was pointing to. There was a door on the other side, right next to a set of stairs that led up to a sort of catwalk above the party that circled the whole room. It was dark, and there wasn't a single person that was up there. Although if there was, they would be very hard to see. The two kids glanced at each other, coming to a silent agreement and nodding slightly, closing the door and shooting off to where they hoped they would find that doorway. However unknown to them, they had already been spotted.

Gluestick tapped on his nose, focusing into Pufferfish's face as they jogged along, keeping their eyes on the doors.

"Hey, Pufferfish. We found a spot to go to, and are heading to set up now. A quick glance over the party from where we were didn't show anything, but we're going to get up on a catwalk, and we might have more luck there." He said. A fair bit away, deep in the warehouse, Pufferfish stopped to answer.

"Good. Be quick about it and stay low. Remember to keep watching for any goons so you don't run into any." She answered.

"Got it." Gluestick answered, the comlink turning off quickly after. The girl let out a breath, shaking her head. With so many people around, she considered the mission more risky than she usually cared for. More people meant more injuries, or more people who could find them out if a fight happened to break out.

She shook her head again, continuing her quiet walk along the halls, glancing in a room every so often to check it before moving on. She didn't expect anything to be in most of these rooms, and she was largely right. Mostly all of the rooms contained not a single soul, and only things like abandoned tables, chairs, and papers. Other than one room that held a young couple practically eating each other's faces off, which she cringed at before yet again moving on. Not their target, so she didn't particularly care to stick around.

All in all, she would call this a fairly boring night, albeit slightly rushed due to the fact that the other guy looking for the scientist would likely be there any minute. Suddenly, she sneezed.

"Pufferfish? Yeah, looks like we need to start picking up the pace. A bunch of black vans are driving up. Doesn't look like it's any kind of party goer. Better get ready for a possible fight." Braceface's voice said.

So it was actually that they would be there any second. Great. She really hoped that there wouldn't be too big of a scene.

"Thank you, Braceface. Tell the others, keep watch, and be ready to run or fight at any moment." Pufferfish told the boy, straightening herself and stepping out of the room she had checked. She needed to be quicker in her search. Heathcliff would likely speed it up once he heard the news as well, thankfully. For the moment, she could only hope for a miracle to not have this whole thing turn into a grand all out fight.


	30. Ensuing trouble

Oh no. Ohhh no. Oh dear. This wasn't good. This wasn't good at all. Lily could see black vans driving up to the warehouse, and some pretty big, obviously goon looking men stepping out of it. They were here, and this party was about to get a whole heck of a lot more chaotic.

"Birdie! Birdie! They're here! Big guys are here! Be careful! Please try to be quicker! And look out for the other kids! They may get hurt if they're found!" The girl said quickly, squishing even more behind the tree.

"Understood. Get somewhere safer, Miss Lily. Someone may catch you if they take a close look. You're practically a beacon at this time of night." Birdie responded after a short moment. Lily nodded to herself, looking around more, before glancing up at the tree above. And very quickly, a light bulb could almost be see appearing above her head.

She closed the laptop, sliding it into the bag on her back, and standing up. She turned around and faced the tree, slowly backing up, before taking a running start to leap up onto one of the branches, and pulling herself up the tree branch by branch, and eventually settling onto one around the middle of the treetop, sturdy enough to hold her weight, but high enough that she was easily hidden in all the leaves. She grinned in pride, taking out her laptop once more and opening it up to look and see how things were. And well...they obviously weren't the best. By the time Lily had scrambled up the tree, the goons had already entered and were pushing through the croud, dispersed and obviously interrogating some of the people.

Inside the party, Birdie wasn't having the best time. He was shifting and pushing through the slowly panicking crowd as well, eyebrows furrowed as his eyes darted about to keep track of everything and every person that passed by. All he could do was hope he would find the target soon.

...And that the enemy wouldn't find the guy before he did.

But he supposed that was too much to ask for, in this moment. It was glaringly obvious as soon as he heard a distant shout, and the goons looked to tune into their ear pieces, all stepping to converge towards another connected door of the warehouse. Above on the catwalk, he could see the children immediately jump into action, rushing towards the danger, and darting in between the droves of people leaving. Birdie cursed under his breath, moving towards where the goons were flocking to as well, focusing on buzzing Lily.

"Ms. Lily. Looks like the goonies found the man before we did. I believe there's going to be a fight on our hands." He said. Quickly after, Lily's voice answered back.

"Oh no..no no no...I'm calling in backup. Bots to help make sure everyone is evacuated safely, and some to help the fight and get our guy out of there. Please make sure the other kids don't get hurt. They may have cool powers, but even those are going to have a hard time against loaded guns." She said, voice now quite obviously panicked.

"Affirmative, I will do my best. You stay safe as well." Birde nodded before turning off the com, hurrying further to follow the group.

And outside? Things were only getting worse to mirror the proceeding horrors inside.


End file.
